An Assembly of Bones
by xahra99
Summary: Post game fic. When Altair is summoned back to Masyaf to take up the Grand Master's mantle and Malik searches for another Eden fragment in the fabled Garden of the Hesperides, they both get more than they bargained for...Sequel to The Word of God.
1. Chapter 1

An Assembly of Bones

An Assassin's Creed fan fiction by xahra99

_'Does man think that we cannot assemble his bones? Nay, we are able to put together in perfect order the very tips of his fingers_'

The Quran

_Author's Note: This story takes place post AC1. Malik and Alta__ïr have spent the last two years travelling the world; using Altaïr's knowledge to discover the hidden Eden fragments and keep them from the Templars. When Altaïr is summoned back to Masyaf to take the mantle of the Grand Master of the Assassins and Malik searches for another Eden fragment in the fabled Garden of the Hesperides, they both get more than they bargained for..._

_Chapter One_.

_Morocco, 1193_.

The plain was the colour of bones, bleached white by the midday sun. The crumbling remains of a Roman aqueduct snaked across the dusty gravel. Although it had been built of better stone than the vanished city it had once supplied, most of the aqueduct's dozen pillars had already collapsed. Two arches remained. Each cast a deep pool of shadow. The shade was a few degrees cooler than the baking plain around it.

Malik al-Sayf sat on a fallen stone beneath the second intact arch with a pen in his good right hand and a crumpled sheet of parchment on his knees. He scratched his chin with the tip of the pen and scowled down at the letter. It was a very hot day. Malik's temper unravelled thread by thread with each drop of sweat that ran down his face.

He wrote _Master_ at the top of the parchment, paused, crossed the title out and replaced it with _Alta__ï__r. _

_I fear that I am not having much success, _he wrote_. There is still no news of the third Eden fragment..._

A stone bounced from the gravel a hand's -breadth from Malik's feet. He persisted.

_...And my attempts at teaching Mar__î__d continue to frustrate me..._

A second stone followed the first.

Malik put down his pen. He glanced up at the bright semicircle of sunlight that marked the high archway just as a panicked voice drifted from the aperture. "I'm going to fall!"

Malik sighed. He folded the letter and slipped it into his pocket. Once the message was safe he pulled his hood over his head, tucked his pen under the stump of his left arm and stepped out into the sun.

High above Malik's head, his apprentice flattened himself like a gecko against the crumbling bricks of the old aqueduct. Marîd was twelve years old, but he looked younger. His dusty robe blended well with the stones, masking his outline. Malik watched as Marîd moved his right hand tentatively upwards and jerked it back as a cascade of tiny stones tumbled from the ledge he had been about to grip. "I'm going to _fall_!" he protested.

Malik mapped the wall's hand and foot-holds in his own mind. "You're not."

"There's no way up." The boy's voice held an edge of frustration as well as panic.

"Don't be foolish." Malik raised his hand and pointed at the wall. "Think of it as a puzzle. There is always another way. In fact, there is a better handhold just to your right, beyond the vine."

Marîd looked uncertainly at the tiny crevice. "But-"

"The ledge _will_ hold your weight," Malik said. _It is amazing what will, _he thought,_ if the alternative is falling to your death._ "Take a breath to calm yourself. Then move quickly, before you lose all momentum."

Marîd nodded. He tensed for a second and launched himself towards the ledge, hanging seemingly without support for a second before his free hand gripped another hold and he pulled himself slowly up the wall.

Malik watched with satisfaction. He saw Marîd hesitate as he reached the top of the wall and called "How long do you think you will last, with the Templars on your tail? Move decisively, or not at all."

"I've seen the Templars." Marîd shouted back. "They're all old men."

Malik shook his head. "Not all of them." He glanced at the stump of his left arm despite himself. "Some Templars can climb, and those that can't can all use crossbows. You'd do well to remember that."

He watched Marîd digest the information and thought, not for the first time, that it would have been far easier to have killed the boy in Timbuktu.

_He taxes me beyond what I had thought possible, _he thought, reminding himself yet again that the path which was easiest to travel was not always the correct one. _But at least now I understand why our teachers at Masyaf were all so short-tempered._

"Excellent," he called as Marîd swung himself over the parapet of the aqueduct. "You've broken the line of sight."

The boy tilted his head. "What use is that?"

"Have you forgotten how we hunt our prey?"

"No," the boy said quickly. "But-"

"And you should not speak until I give you leave."

Marîd opened his mouth, caught Malik's warning glare, and closed it again.

_Finally_, Malik thought. He wondered if he was being unnecessarily harsh. He had taken to answering all of Marîd's questions in the negative in the hope that the boy would eventually stop asking but Marîd didn't seem to work like that. "You may speak now," he said after a while.

The boy glanced hesitantly down at the void beneath his feet. "What now?"

"Now," Malik said, "you try the leap of faith."

Much later, when he had finally managed to talk the boy down, he wondered again just what he was doing wrong.

There were Assassins who possessed infinite patience; skilled teachers who could convey the most complicated ideas with a flick of a pen or a dagger. Malik was not one of them. He had never wanted to be an instructor. On good days, he found Marîd's lessons marginally interesting. On _bad_ days, he hoped that the boy would fall from a great height and save him the trouble of a push.

_And the damned Apple is still nowhere to be found..._

Malik gazed out at the bone-white plain, calculating the odds of finding a single small artefact in this featureless waste. They were not good. His pessimistic train of thought was interrupted by Marîd. "Master?"

"I have told you many times," Malik said. "I am not your master."

The boy's forehead creased. He raised a hand and brushed fine rock dust from his hair. "Why not?"

"I'm a _rafiq_," Malik said. "Not a master Assassin." He shrugged. "And certainly not _the_ Master. That title is Altaïr's."

Technically, he supposed, he _was_ the boy's master-the Assassins were a hierarchical society, after all- but the title bothered him for any one of a dozen reasons. First and foremost among them was that if he had been a proper Master he would have beaten Marîd's distressing tendency to ask annoying questions at exactly the wrong moment out of him weeks ago. Moreover, the title implied some degree of responsibility. Malik did not want to be responsible for this child.

_Truth be told_, he thought, _I have not the patience for the task_.

"You'll have a real teacher at Masyaf," he said reassuringly. _Though you may have to take your place with the toddlers and the women._ "And the sooner we are at Masyaf, the better."

"For your sake?"

"For all our sakes," Malik said. "If you would learn, now recite the Creed."

"I-"

"Backwards," Malik snarled.

As the boy stuttered he settled back into the lengthening shade and thought longingly of Masyaf. His most vivid memories of the mountain fortress seemed insubstantial against the burning backdrop of the plain.

_And I have not been to Masyaf myself in nearly two years_, he thought sourly. _No doubt Altair is taking his ease and enjoying the privileges of his new position... _

_Masyaf. 1193._

Even the midday heat did little to wipe the smirk from Abbas' face. "Altaïr," he said cheerily as he leaned against the gatepost of the Masyaf fortress. "Here at last. Did you know you're late?"

Altaïr ibn La-Ahad, pupil of Al Mualim and Grand Master of the Masyaf Assassins, nodded as he dismounted. "Safety and peace, Abbas. It's been a long journey."

"May it be longer still," said Abbas. "We heard word you docked at Acre. The _rafiqs_ wait for you in the Master's study." He paused. "Your study. How things have changed."

"They will change more before I'm through." Altaïr said. He knotted his horse's reins to the hitching post outside the fortress gates, patted the beast's shoulder and picked up his pack. "Count on it, Abbas."

The older Assassin raised his eyebrows sceptically. "Really? You'd best hurry, then. The Persians aren't going to like this. You've been away too long, Altaïr."

"I did what I had to."

Abbas looked unconvinced. "If you say so." He swung the gate open and stepped aside as Altaïr entered. "Altaïr?"

"Abbas?"

"Welcome home. For what it's worth, it's good to see you unharmed."

Altaïr smiled beneath the deep hood of his robe. "You as well, Abbas."

He climbed the steep path towards the village until Abbas and the gate had dwindled to miniatures behind him. Masyaf's ever-present breeze carried one final comment to his ears. "The Persians aren't going to like this _at all_..."

They didn't.

Altaïr reached the castle without attracting undue attention of any kind. Masyaf was an Assassin stronghold, and white-robed men were commonplace in the town. The keep guards, more savvy or observant than most of Masyaf's denizens, greeted him enthusiastically, and he had to decline the offer of a hot bath, clean clothing and a good meal before he finally climbed the broad flight of stairs to the old Master's study. Judging by the expressions on the faces of the six _rafiqs_ he found there, the guards' hospitable impulses were not shared by the entire Assassin community.

He nodded to them. "My brothers," he said.

The rafiqs hesitated, as if greeting a ghost. Altaïr glanced around at their faces. He recognised only a few. There was Moctar, the old _rafiq_ of Acre, clinging grimly to his position despite his advancing years. And Yusuf, who had been one of Altaïr's own teachers. Others were notable by their absence. The outspoken _rafiq_ of Damascus had died in the last battle against the Old Man. And Malik, of course, was thousands of miles away.

The remainder were Nasr's men. They did not look happy. The old Master had been Persian, from Alamut. These men had been his closest companions. They stared silently at Altaïr. Altaïr left the silence where it was and waited for somebody to fill it. After a while one of the Persians said cautiously "Welcome, Master,"

Altaïr inclined his head.

"We have waited too long for your arrival," said another.

Altaïr ignored the thinly veiled criticism. "You may be seated," he said. Somebody had set out six narrow chairs in a loose semicircle around the Master's desk-his desk-and the Master's chair-his chair, he realised as he took his place.

He'd fled the castle in secrecy and haste. He had returned in triumph, but it didn't feel like success. Al Mualim's chair felt far too large.

He waited until the _rafiqs_ had settled into sullen silence before he spoke again.

"I am no Al Mualim," he said. "There are those among you with more cause to realise that than others. We have weathered a great storm, and yet we must be cautious. Times are changing, and we must change with them." He looked around and noted which of the men looked most uneasy at the mention of change. "We must not forget the Creed. And," he added, "I have many questions myself. I have been away a long time."

"What are your orders?" asked another Persian Assassin. Altaïr did not recognise him, either. He made a mental note to learn all their names.

"Only that you speak freely," he said. "I would hear your thoughts."

He watched them consider this and thought; _I would rather hear those emotions that you dare not put into words._

Altaïr's old teacher Yusuf stepped forwards and cleared his throat. "As you will know, the Ayyubids are in disarray," he said. "They at least do not pose a threat."

Altaïr frowned. "What of Saladin?" he asked.

They stared. "You have not heard?"

"I have been travelling for months," Altaïr said, perhaps a little more harshly then he intended.

"He has been dead and buried in Damascus these last three months," the second Persian said. "The Destroyer came to him not long after the Franj king quit the Holy Land."

_Saladin dead_? Altaïr frowned beneath his hood. "This is troubling news. Who is his successor?"

"He has divided his lands between his kin."

Every Assassin knew that division bred conflict. Altaïr's frown deepened. "I had hoped that peace would remain for longer," he said. "But it cannot be helped. We shall do what we must, should the need arise. Has there been news of the Templars?"

"None," somebody replied.

The Persian _rafiq_ snorted. "The Templars have been broken."

"Broken," Altaïr said firmly, "but not yet defeated."

"The Holy Land is lost to them."

Moctar of Acre coughed and cleared his throat with a rattle of phlegm."They will be back," he said, spitting on the threadbare carpet. A gloomy silence followed his pronouncement.

"You are right," Altaïr replied. "But we have defeated the Templars once already. We shall do so again." He thought of Saladin, now dead. A lethal enemy, but one he had respected. "Besides, greater men have broken armies on these walls. We shall be safe."

"If they come," one of the younger men said tentatively, "we have ourselves a great weapon in the Eden fragments that you seek."

"They are greater than any weapon I have ever known." Altaïr took a deep breath. "And they are evil. We should not trust them."

"Evil or not, I hear that you have retrieved another orb," said Moctar. "May we see it?"

Altaïr nodded. He reached into his pack. The Eden fragment came easily to his hand. He lifted it out, unwrapped its shroud of fabric and set the artefact on the desk, where its surface gleamed in the rainbow light that shone through the stained glass window. The _rafiqs_ regarded the relic warily, as if it were a deadly snake.

"Where did you find it?" asked another Persian.

"Timbuktu." Altaïr said. He flicked the orb with his fingernail. The patterns carved into its surface shone like water.

"Are there more?"

"Yes." He looked up at them all. "Is the Cairo artefact safe?"

Moctar nodded. "It is." He glanced around and scowled at the eager faces of the younger men. "That makes two, and if you ask me, that's twice the trouble."

"Each orb that we possess is another taken out of the hands of the Templars," replied Altaïr.

"Would it not be safer to destroy them?" Yusuf asked.

Altaïr shook his head. He recalled the holocaust captured in the orb; heard the screams. "In truth, I do not think we can destroy them. It is our task to keep them safe, and, maybe, to try to understand them."

"But-"

"If the Templars seize the Eden pieces, we stand no chance at all," Altaïr said firmly. "But enough of this. We must rebuild. Others will come. Make them welcome. Teach them our creed. Now leave me to think on what must be done. I'll summon you again very soon."

The _rafiqs_ nodded with various degrees of enthusiasm. They filed out only when it became clear that Altaïr was not going to leave before them. Only Moctar paused beside Altaïr's desk.

"Master?" he said, and sounded like he meant it. His skinny hand stretched out to grasp the Apple. "Shall I stow this orb with the other?"

"Leave it here." Altaïr said curtly.

Moctar nodded and left.

The new Master sighed as he listened to their boots descending the stairs. When he was alone he relaxed a fraction. He reached out for the orb despite himself, careful to keep a layer of cloth between the artefact and his skin.

_I have so many questions_, he thought. _How and why did Nasr die? Did he use the Cairo orb before he met his end? What of Saladin, and his successors? Are the Templars really as broken as they seem? And what does all this mean for the peace of the Holy Land?_

He sighed again and held the orb up to the light that streamed through the tall window behind him.

_What are these Eden fragments? Are they evil? Or may they yet be turned to good once out of Templar hands?_

He shook his head. He had more immediate matters at hand.

_I need friends here. I need advisors I can trust. And I'd best find them quickly. Abbas, maybe. Rauf, if he yet lives. I must turn the Persians from Alamut, and stay vigilant for the Templars and their plans._

Altaïr looked around at Al Mualim's great library. Nasr had made few changes. It was all as he remembered it. The Master's knowledge would be recorded in the books. He'd have to search the archives, or have someone do it for him.

_So many questions. And there will be more. More every day._

He wondered how many questions he had forgotten to ask. And there _would_ be things that he had forgotten.

_I wish that I was still wandering in the desert_, he thought.

_To be continued..._


	2. Chapter 2

An Assembly of Bones

An Assassin's Creed fan fiction by xahra99

_Chapter Two_.

_Ten days later, somewhere in the High Atlas, Morocco_.

The knife shone in the desert sun, curving in a perfect parabola towards Malik's hip. He dodged, scuffing up sand, and Marîd's blade cut empty air.

"It seems you have forgotten what it means to wield a blade," he said. "At least attack me."

Marîd gritted his teeth. He lashed out uncertainly with his knife. Malik pivoted, dodged the blow and kicked the boy's legs out from under him. Marîd hit the dust.

"You need to stay aware of your surroundings," he told the boy. "A blade is not a sword. If you are close enough to stab, you're close enough for a kick. Or a blow. But don't go too far away. At least try to hit me."

Marîd got to his feet slowly. He spat on his hands, reclaimed his blade, and slashed. Malik saw the movement for the feint it was and blocked it easily. "And don't treat a knife like a sword." He demonstrated a blow. "Think of the blade as a sharp edge to your fist. Punch with the knife. Don't swing it."

Marîd's eyes did not leave Malik's blade. "The knives are sharp," he said.

"Weapons generally are," Malik pointed out.

"Not training weapons." Marîd glanced up at the midday sun. "And fighting practice doesn't usually take place at midday in the desert."

Malik shrugged. "Your enemies may fight with blunted blades in the shade." He attacked, and this time Marîd slid away. "But mine do not."

"The Templars didn't teach me like this!" Marîd protested.

Malik raised an eyebrow. "They taught you?"

Marîd took a better grip on his blade and struck once more. He missed, but twisted his body and blocked Malik's return kick. His breath hissed between his teeth in frustration. "How do I win a fight?"

Malik decided not to mention the years of often gruelling weapons training, exercises and drills that Assassins usually started at the age of seven. "Keep practising. You're learning."

"Yes," Marîd panted as he wiped sweat from his face. "But what should I do in a fight against the Templars?"

"My advice?" Malik said. "Get a crossbow. You'd hold your own against some amateurs, but you'd have no chance against a real Templar knight. If you see one, then run."

The boy frowned."Assassins don't run."

Malik sighed. "We fight, _and then _we run," he said, tucking his knife back into his belt.

Marîd wiped his dusty blade off on his robes before he sheathed the weapon. "I was taught that running was a coward's act," he said. "Isn't it better to fight to the death?"

"That depends," Malik said. "Who told you that?"

"Templars-" the boy said reluctantly. "But-"

"Exactly," said Malik. "This is why we beat the Templars in the Holy Land and not the other way around."

"But-" Marîd protested.

"Is running from a fight more or less cowardly than poisoning?" Malik asked innocently. He watched the boy flush and fidget for a moment before he relented. "Just run. It's easier.

"I didn't think-"

"You didn't think this was assassination? Think again. The Templars are superior in numbers, if not in skill. We strike from the shadows. Then we run. It's the only way." He sighed. "You need a proper teacher."

At Marîd's age Malik had had faith in his masters. He'd done what they told him, instantly and without question. If they'd told him to take the leap of faith with no straw to break his fall, he'd have done it. He'd probably have regretted it afterwards, but he would have done it. _Alta__ï__r and Al Mualim between them made me a wiser man, _he thought_. They taught me to ask questions._

_Maybe the boy isn't as hopeless as he seems._

Malik sighed again. "Now let's go. We still need to find somewhere to sleep tonight, and it's getting late."

Marîd took a long drink of water from the skin. "We've ben travelling for a long time," he said.

"Yes." Malik had no patience with pointless talk.

"How long do you think it'll take us to find the Eden fragment?"

Malik shrugged. "The orbs have a way of being found," he said, hoping that he sounded more confident than he felt. The Assassins had stolen the three orbs from holy places across the known world. They'd found the first in the Temple of Solomon, the second in the Great Pyramid of Giza. The third had been hidden in the Sankore mosque of Timbuktu. He could think of nothing sacred in this barren desert.

_Maybe there _is_ nothing in this desert. Nothing except dust and camels, anyway..._

Despite his doubts, they found a nomad campsite just as the sun sank below the horizon. It was nothing much to look at: small, shabby and poor, but it was a thousand times more welcoming than the dry plains that surrounded it. Malik and Marîd were blinking smoke from their eyes beside a dung fire by the time the moon rose. A cluster of curious children huddled a cautious distance away. The firelight gleamed from the eyes of sleepy herding dogs.

"You say you're traders?" the nomad woman asked as she served Marîd another bowl of stew. The boy inhaled the thick soup as if it was his last meal on this earth. Malik didn't even know her name-her husband was away, and it would have been impolite to ask-so he just nodded.

The woman brightened. She looked around, maybe searching for something that she could trade for coin. "My sister spins very fine wool," she said after a while, "The best."

Malik shook his head. "We don't deal in wool," he told her. The food was good, and he felt a little guilty as he watched her face fall. "But I'm sure it's very fine." It probably was, but he had no wish to jolt around the desert laden like a tinker. One thing he had discovered on this journey was that every village had something to trade, no matter how small. Malik could have bargained to his heart's content if that had been his wish. "We deal in rare artefacts. Do you know where such things might be found?"

The nomad woman hesitated, one hand to her lips. Malik waited for her reply. He did not expect much. They had asked the same question in every village from Sijilmasa to Ouarzazate and heard nothing. "What sort of artefacts?" she asked.

Malik fought an unaccustomed surge of hope. "Stones?" he suggested. "Things of that sort." He waited for her to pull out some piece of junk that her brother's cousin's friend had found deep in the desert-authentic, rare and available at a surprisingly reasonable price-, but she just sat and stirred the pot. Eventually she scratched her head and said "Well, I don't know. But there's a castle not far away, in the mountains. You might ask them."

Malik paused with his bowl half way to his mouth."A castle? Where?"

She shrugged. "I've never been. But I've heard tell of it."

"A keep? A garrison?" She looked at him blankly."Who rules there?"

She frowned. "I don't rightly know. But their lords wear red and white."

_Red and white_. Malik mentally cursed. _Templars._"Their emblem?" he asked. "Do they wear the cross?" He sketched a Templar crucifix in the dust with his finger.

She squinted at the crude diagram uncertainly. At last she nodded. "You shouldn't go there, though. 'Tis bad luck." She paused to make the sign of the horns with her left hand. "And I heard that they serve demons."

"Demons?" Malik did not believe in demons. He believed in the power of the Eden fragments, although he wished he didn't. "You've seen ghosts there?"

She made the sign of the horns again and spat on the ground. "No. But I've heard tales." _Superstitious folk_, Malik thought. _They must have an Eden fragment_. _It's the only explanation. "_What tales_?"_

"Not much," she said reluctantly, as if she was disappointed that she didn't have more gossip. "Only they say that the garden there is more beautiful than anything you've ever seen." She looked wistfully around at the barren hills. "Like paradise."

Malik frowned. "I don't understand."

The nomad woman waved a hand at the dry desert. "Could any mortal man transform this place into a garden? No, they deal with demons, and we all know it. 'Tis best for you to stay well away."

Malik ignored her warning. "Tell me where this castle is."

The nomad woman shrugged and pointed to the east. Malik took careful note of the direction and turned the conversation to other things.

He woke Marîd before dawn the next morning. "We're going."

Marîd blinked sleep from his eyes. He rose for once without question and began to roll up his blanket. The fire had burnt down to white embers. The nomad woman and her children were motionless bundles of blankets inside their goat-hair tent. A sheepdog slid open one eye to watch them go. Malik left some coins on the mats nearest the fire and they slipped away into the scrubby hills.

"How much did you hear last night?" he asked Marîd as they walked east.

"Enough," Marîd said eagerly. "You think the Templars have the orb."

Malik nodded. "You were apprenticed to the Templars once," he said. "How much do you know of their ways?"

Marîd looked uncertain.

"It's not a trick. I need to know everything you know about the Templars."

"Why?" Marîd asked.

Malik grinned. "We're going to join them."

_Masyaf. _

Altaïr's finger paused on the page.

"_Did you think that you could enter the garden of heaven without such trials_," he read, "_as those who passed before you_?"

Al Mualim had underlined the sentence. Altaïr had no idea why. He sighed and laid down the book.

He had found that most of Al Mualim's papers made no sense at all. Many of the old Master's books had sheets of handwritten annotations or slim folios from completely different authors hidden within their pages. Their authors were Saracen or Franj, of all faiths or none. The old man had spent most of his life in his library. The books were Al Mualim's legacy. Altaïr had hoped that they would lead him towards a better understanding of both the Assassins and the Templars.

He was starting to wonder if he had been wrong.

_I need a translator, _he thought. _An index or a guide_. _Something that will allow me to make sense of all this. _

_Or failing that, a candle and about five minutes..._

The sheer number of texts piled on Al Mualim's desk overwhelmed him. There were books of all shapes and sizes. There were letters from all of the Assassins' Bureaus. There were letters from men who owed the Assassins money, favours, or both. There were bribes and treaties. There were thinly veiled threats from men foolish enough to think that their money, connections or lineage would protect them from a dagger in the back.

Altaïr had never been one for reading.

The gleaming surface of the third Apple caught his eye underneath the stacks of paper. He nearly gave into temptation before he jerked his hand away.

_I should keep a journal_, he thought. _Note down some of these concerns for later answers. Maybe those who come after me will make more satisfactory conclusions_.

He knew that he should interview the Persian Assassins and find out where their loyalties lay. He should reply to all the letters, or at least enlist somebody to do it for him. He should begin to gather men that he could trust.

_Rauf, _he thought_. Moctar. Malik, when or if he arrives. And Abbas is no friend of mine, but he too _can _be trusted to tell the truth whatever the circumstances. _

_I should..._

Altaïr's gaze strayed to the windows. _I am the Master_, he thought. _I can behave as I wish. _

He felt only a little guilty as he rose from the desk, swung open the small panel in the stained-glass window behind it and climbed out onto the roof.

The rooftop was much cooler than the study. A summer storm seethed on the horizon. Lightning flashed against a nearly purple horizon. Altaïr felt a gust of hot wind in his face.

He would have liked to climb to the very top of the flagpole that decorated the fortress but refrained for two reasons; the first being that a tall flagpole was not a good place to be during a lightning storm and the second that it would be both foolish and embarrassing to be mistaken for an enemy and shot by his own archers.

In the end it wasn't the lightning or the archers that forced him down, but the sight of a small crowd gathering at the gate and a guard hurrying up the steep path to the fortress. In earlier times he would have taken it for none of his business. As Master, he didn't have the luxury. It was his gate, and his problem.

Altaïr descended.

He heard the guard's footsteps on the stairs as he climbed back through the window. The top of the man's head just cleared the stairs as he sat down behind the Master's desk. The man did not notice, or affected not to, that his Master was slightly out of breath.

"Master?" he asked.

Altaïr raised his head from the papers he was pretending to study. "Yes-" He paused a moment to recall the guard's name, "-Rashid?"

The soldier beamed. "Your next visitor has arrived, Master. Shall I send her in?"

Altaïr nodded. He had no idea who the woman was.

_I need a journal_, he thought. _Or a secretary_.

"I'll show her in?"

Altaïr nodded assent. It was a decision he would later come to regret.

The guard bowed. He retreated down the stairs and returned a few moments later with a small woman. Her eyes were heavily lined with kohl. She regarded Altaïr coolly.

"Nusaybah bint Khadijah al-Yerusalem, widow of Rashid ibn Sinan," the guard announced.

It took Altaïr a few seconds to recognise the name of Malik's Jerusalem companion.

_Hm_, he thought. _This should be interesting_.

The guard bowed and withdrew. Nusaybah copied neither gesture. She inclined her head slightly in the smallest of bows and said "I am sorry, but the guards at the gate would not listen. I have business with the _rafiq_ of Jerusalem."

"You're a long way from Jerusalem" Altaïr said.

"Indeed. I am just passing through Masyaf on my way to visit my husband's kin in Safita," she said, "And _you_ are not Malik al-Sayf." She looked suspiciously around the room, as if Malik was hiding beneath a bookshelf. "Who do I have the honour of addressing?"

"I'm the Master of the Assassins," he said. "Altaïr ibn La'Ahad. And Malik is no longer in Jerusalem. He serves the Order thousands of miles from here. The gate guards knew this, and so they sent you here to me. Surely I may help?"

She did not look impressed. "Master? You are not one of those faithful that hate women?"

"In truth I have not had much to do with women," Altaïr admitted.

She tilted her head. "Well, I can believe that. No matter. To business, then."

"To business," Altaïr agreed. "You had dealings with the bureau when Malik was in Jerusalem?"

She nodded. "Yes. Al-Sayf owes me a favour. Several, in fact. But enough of that. What do you know of the Templars?"

He shrugged. "As much as any man alive."

"They tried to buy my weapons," she said haughtily. "Stop looking like that! I inherited my husband's business. Any woman may be a merchant!"

_Not a weapons merchant_, Altaïr thought, but had the sense not to say it. The woman who had taken Robert de Sable's place in Jerusalem had wielded weapons, after all.

Nusaybah read the expression on his face easily.

"I suppose you think women should sell needlework or silks," she said sarcastically. "Your friend underestimated me, and I did not take long to put him right. Why do you men always think woman know nothing of war? Now I must go through the same process again, and I have not the patience. I tell you that the Templars mean to take the Holy Land through force of arms."

"They have no army," Altaïr said quietly.

She shrugged. "That's nothing to do with me."

"Are you sure that they were Templars?"

"What do you take me for?" she said indignantly.

_Trouble_, he thought. Far above, the storm broke. Rain battered at the windows. A gust of cool air drifted into the room and brought with it the scent of raindrops on hot stone. "Did you sell them the weapons?"

Nusaybah ran the silk threads woven into her hair through her fingers and gave him the seasoned cynical gaze of an old campaigner. "No. What of it? So while your enemies are buying weapons to outfit the armies they do not have, will you sit here safely in your castle?"

Altaïr said nothing. He folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, creating a silence for her to fill. It did not take long.

"They've no doubt approached others," she told him.

"Who?"

Nusaybah ticked names off on her fingers. "Mohammed al-Afdal, Yusuf ibn Ali." She raised her chin to look him in the eye. "Those two won't have had enough to sell. And then there's Sahl ben Salman. He will. If Tamir of Damascus was still alive, they'd no doubt have asked him too."

"Siege engines?"

"I don't deal in such things, but I'd think it likely. Are you concerned that they'll attack the castle?" Her gaze raked the strong stone walls. "Of course you are."

"Not afraid," Altaïr said. "Cautious." He sat back. "What will you take in return for this information? Money?"

Nusaybah shook her head.

"Good. Those who can be bribed with cash can be bribed again for more." _And I have not yet checked the treasury. _

She smiled sweetly. "Malik already owes me a favour."

"What for?"

"I helped him kill a man," she said, as matter-of-factly as if she was choosing a flower for her hair. Altaïr suddenly realised what Malik saw in her."Then what do you want?"

She smiled and slid a folded slip of paper across the table towards him. "Let us wait and see how this plays out. I have prepared for you a list of the weapons they wished to buy. You would do better to approach the other merchants privately. If I make enquiries they will think I have an interest and refuse to sell. Just remember I have helped you." She smiled briefly. "The Grand Master of the Assassins would make a most excellent ally. I think that I will ask you for a favour in return."

"Favours are often too dear in the long run," he told her.

Nusaybah shrugged. "Funny. That's just what your friend said."

"You spoke of the Creed?" Altaïr asked curiously.

Her smile widened, although she ducked her head to hide it. "We did not talk much."

Altaïr wished that Malik could be here so he could see the look on his friend's face. "Your loyalties?" he tested.

"Are my own. As always."

"You're very confident."

"And you're more generous than I had heard. You are Assassins, after all."

Altaïr smiled."Yet you still came."

She lost a little of her composure. "I had...reason to believe you would not harm me."

"We don't harm innocents."

"So you say. And yet who among us are truly innocent?" This time her smile was sad.

"Indeed," Altaïr agreed. "Very well. I'll be in touch. Masyaf will send a pigeon if I wish to contact you further."

"I'll visit on my return from Safita," Nusaybah turned away. "But I must be careful. The Templars must not know of my alliance with your castle."

"They won't," Altaïr assured her.

"Please see to it. I'll not have my household put in danger." She paused on the threshold and looked back."Do you have female Assassins? I could disguise myself as one, and pass unnoticed through your gates "she asked.

"No."

"You should."

"I will consider it," he said.

"Do," she said, as curtly as if they were discussing a business deal, and left.

When he was certain that she had gone, Altaïr pulled the list towards him and began to read its contents.

_To be continued..._


	3. Chapter 3

An Assembly of Bones

An Assassin's Creed fan fiction by xahra99

_Chapter Three_.

The Templars caught up with them two days out of the nomad camp.

It was late enough that Malik had already begun to search for a place to camp and early enough that he had not yet found one. They were half way across an empty plain the colour of baked brick when Marîd announced. "I see horses."

Malik shaded his eyes and looked up. Mountains ridged like a dragon's spine in the distance. A small puff of pale dust hung on the horizon. The dust-cloud grew larger as Malik watched. He could just make out bright shapes within the dust. He felt his stomach lurch with simultaneous anticipation and wariness.

"Knights?" Marîd asked eagerly.

Malik shook his head. He lowered his hand."No. Scouts. Knights would be more heavily armoured."

"Do you think they're Templars?"

Malik stretched. He felt the heat of the afternoon sun on his back, sliding towards tolerable as the night grew nearer, "Almost certainly."

"What do we do?"

"We wait," Malik said. "And you learn."

Marîd frowned. "Why don't we fight?"

"On this plain? I did not realise you wanted to die so badly."

The boy looked nervously around. "We could hide-"

Malik shrugged."Where? They've already seen us." The soldiers were close enough that he could make out individuals. There was nowhere to hide.

"So we're just going to give up?" Marîd asked disbelievingly. His mouth gaped open.

Malik shook his head. "Get behind me," he told the boy. "Now."

"I can fight-" Marîd protested.

Malik inhaled sharply. "Must you disregard everything I say? We're not going to fight! Besides," he added, "if you even think about reaching for a weapon you'll learn a lesson about impossible odds a little sooner than I would have liked."

"But-"

Malik; unwilling to risk his life on a young man's foolish pride, did not wait. He drew his own knife and lunged sideways in a single motion. Razor-sharp steel sliced through the thongs that attached the scabbard to Marîd's belt. The knife thumped into the sand. Malik kicked it towards him, bent down and tucked the knife into his own belt before Marîd had finished groping for the blade.

He straightened up just as the riders came within arrow-distance. Three men, well fed and well-equipped, riding small tough desert ponies. They wore mail shirts and carried spears with the red-and-white pennants of the Templars wrapped around the shaft. They approached at a steady canter. Malik heard the hooves of their horses thudding against the baked earth. He could sense the boy waiting in mulish, impatient silence just behind his left shoulder.

As the soldiers trotted the last few metres towards the Assassins they spread out and lowered their spears. Malik bowed, his one good arm outstretched so they could see he held no weapon. "_As-salaam aleikum_," he said politely.

The lead soldier's expression never wavered. He stared at them down his nose from the back of his pony while Malik thought of all the techniques he could use to wipe the supercilious smile from his face. "_As-salaam aleikum_," he repeated.

The soldier frowned. The leaf-shaped iron tip of the spear hovered an arm's length from Malik's throat, the frayed ends of its silk pennant drifting in the desert breeze. Eventually he cleared his throat and said in a voice which did not sound at all friendly, "What is your name, friend?"

Malik bowed again. He had found that it did no harm to be polite to men holding weapons. "I am called Malik al-Sayf. This is Marid al-Fassi. We are-"

The soldier cut him off. "Your accents are strange. Where are you from?"

"We are from Cairo," Malik said cautiously.

"You've travelled far." The soldier did not sound so much interested as suspicious. "What are you doing here?"

Malik hesitated.

The Templar's frown deepened into a scowl. "Your business?" he asked again. The spear-tip moved a hands-breath closer to Malik's neck.

Malik swallowed. He dredged up his old lie and thought better of it as soon as the words had left his mouth."We're traders," he said. "But we're searching for a new world."

"What sort of world?"

Malik searched desperately in his memory for threads of Templar dogma. "A world of peace, without war or suffering," he hazarded. "A better place, where all might live as equals."

"For whom do you seek?" The soldier's eyes were hard.

Malik tamped down a flicker of satisfaction. "We seek the Father of Understanding," he said.

"Then you seek the Master."

Malik shrugged. "We seek the truth," he said.

"Yet...you bear a sword," said a leaden voice.

Malik snapped his head around to the left. Behind him, Marîd startled. Malik did not blame him. The rusty monotone of the second soldier's voice was unsettling enough to make Malik wish the man had stayed silent. The skin on the back of his neck crawled as the second soldier tilted his head down to stare at them both. The movement was uncanny, almost mechanical. As Malik watched, the third man mimicked the head-tilt down to the last detail. Their leader sat his horse and watched both Malik and Marîd with a supercilious and slightly amused expression.

_There is something very strange about these men_, Malik thought, _besides them being Templars_.

The leader gestured with his spear-point. "Answer the question."

Malik kept his voice very even and his hand a long way from his knives as he replied, "The sword is for protection. We have travelled a long way, and the roads are dangerous."

"Indeed," the first man said. "It's a long way to Cairo."

"The Master's teachings have spread far." Malik said uneasily. He had expected questions-but not out here in the desert, and not so soon. He was unsurprised to discover that he did not like even pretending to be a Templar. "Enough talk. Will you give us entry, or not?"

The leader frowned. He nudged his pony a step forwards, close enough that Malik could smell the stink of horse-sweat. His two companions stared at the Assassins through the narrow slits of their visors. Malik could not see their faces, but he got the unsettling feeling that they did not blink. From their attitudes, they could have been twins.

"Your sword."

Malik tore his gaze back to the lead knight. He noted with relief that the man had righted his spear. The Templar cross flew starkly against the blue midsummer sky. "My pardon?"

"Your sword," the knight repeated. He tilted his helmet back on his head, revealing hard brown eyes and sun-leathered skin. "Hand it over. I'll admit you, but I won't have you armed." He shrugged. "Or you can walk back to Cairo. Your choice."

Malik was already unlacing the leather thongs that held his sword to his belt with no protest and some difficulty-the leather had stiffened in the dry air. As the laces slid free he caught the weapon one-handed before the tip of the scabbard touched the ground. Reversing his grip on the scabbard, he handed it to the soldier without complaint. Any man who relied solely on a sword lacked imagination as far as Malik was concerned.

The soldier examined the battered weapon, sniffed in surprise or derision, and tied the sword to his sash beside his own. He spun his horse on its hocks and gestured over his shoulder. "Come with us."

Malik shrugged and followed. Marîd hesitated for a second before he fell into line. It took him a few seconds to catch up, and a few minutes to regain enough confidence to whisper to Malik "Are we guests, or prisoners?"

Malik shrugged again. "Does it matter?"

"Of course it d-" Marîd hesitated. "No. We're where we want to be."

"You're learning. Good." Malik looked around. He saw only the sweating flanks of horses as the knights bunched around them."Keep your mouth shut and your eyes open. We can't be far from their castle."

Marîd nodded. Sweat streaked his face. He swiped a hand across his forehead and wiped his palm on his ragged robe. They walked on.

The Templars took them due north across the plain. They rode in silence, with only the jingle of harness and the click of horseshoes on rocks to mark their passage. The sun sank towards the horizon, painting the sky with vivid streaks of amber, scarlet and rose.

After three hours of hard walking they reached a stream.

It was nothing much. In Syria it would have been a meagre trickle of water narrow enough for a man to jump over. Here in the desert it was a river. The party waded across, ankle-deep. The horses snorted and sidled across the rivulet, pulling at the reins until blood showed at the corners of their mouths in a futile attempt to reach the water. Marîd stooped to snatch a drink in mid-stream. As he bent down one of the horses barged into him. Malik shouted and slapped its chest-a horse would not willingly trample a human-and the horse flung up its head. White rimmed its eyes. Its rider cursed Marîd.

"Leave him be," Malik said sharply. "We must drink."

The lead soldier nodded curtly. All three urged their horses from the river and sat mounted on the opposite bank, where they watched as the Assassins drank quickly. The soldiers showed no sign of thirst. Their horses drooled and fought their bits. Sweat dampened their dark flanks. Marîd, who had tended camels in the desert, looked at the soldiers with disdain. "Are they mad?" he whispered.

Malik, who had been wondering the same thing, shrugged. "Mad, no. Maybe just careless," he said quietly.

"They are fools to push their animals so hard."

"True," agreed Malik. "But they are Templars. And it is none of our business to tell other men how to tend to their horses. Even if they _are_ fools."

Marîd scooped up another handful of water. "There is no doubt of that, or they would have stopped for the night by now," he complained. "The water is good, but rest would be better. Besides, their horses are nearly spent. They seem more demons than men. Don't they tire? "

Malik paused with his hand half way to his mouth. "Maybe not," he said.

Marîd's questions were drowned out by the Templar leader's curt command. "Move on now," he snapped. "That's long enough."

They followed the knights on across the desert. As they walked, Malik recalled just where he had seen men like these. They had been Assassins, rather than Templars. Men under the control of Al Mualim, and his Apple...

_The Apple bends their minds_, he thought, _I am sure of it_.

The idea made Malik's skin crawl. He had never trusted the Eden fragments the way Altaïr did_. I never thought the price was worth the cost, _he thought._ These soldiers do nothing to change my mind._

_Still, at least we are in the right place. _

It was cold comfort. Malik resolved to keep his suspicions to himself until they had reached the castle. Unlike Marîd, he did not think it far. The landscape was already beginning to change.

The alterations were subtle at first. A few ridges of mountains emerged from the haze and dust of the horizon. Bare rock gave way to thorn-bushes, and thorn-bushes to scrub, and finally, as they rounded a hill, grass of such a startling emerald green that it seemed to have been carved from bright jade. Strange rounded hills dotted the landscape every hundred paces, each with a bucket and well, and channels directed the water between every patchwork scrap of grass. A few houses clustered around the flanks of the hills. Smoke drifted from the chimneys of the houses. Malik smelt cooking on the wind but saw no villagers.

The knights followed the ribbon of green around the hill and into a deep valley on the other side. Crops that Malik could not name bent beneath the horses' hooves, and date palms-which he could-nodded above their heads. The knights did not stop, but they allowed-or at least did not prevent-their horses to snatch mouthfuls of grass as they rode. The scent of rich damp earth drifted up from the ground as mud squelched under Malik's boots.

The canyon narrowed like a fish-trap until there were only three fields squeezed abreast into the narrow space, and then finally only one. The last field tapered into a canyon that was just wide enough for Malik and Marîd to walk abreast. The tail of the leader's horse swished in front of Malik as the canyon turned through two right angles- a natural fortress-gate, he realized- and then they were out in the open again. The two outriders squeezed silently through the narrow space behind them as the valley spread out in front.

It was the closest thing to Paradise Malik had ever seen on earth.

Directly in front of where they were standing the ground rose to form a steep hill. On top of the hill was a fortress-_no_, Malik realised, _a palace-city_, for the castle had low walls of backed adobe and had surely never been used for war.

Despite himself, he had to admit that he was impressed.

The slopes of the hill had been terraced to form a garden, with pools that cascaded from tier to tier in steep waterfalls that cooled the air and made the evening heat a little more bearable. The surface of the nearest pool was, from the look of the rippling rings that marked the surface of the water, well stocked with fish. Trees bordered every pool. Large and small, they dipped low branches into the fish-ponds or stood, neatly pruned, in glazed pots as tall as Marîd. Malik was no gardener, so it took him a few minutes to realize that the trees were all of the same variety. They were all apple trees.

"The garden of the Hesperides," he whispered.

The lead soldier kicked his horse in the ribs. "Come on."

Malik tore his eyes away from the garden and followed the Templars.

He had expected to be taken to a barracks, or maybe a clerk's office. Instead the soldiers dismounted, handed their horses to a group of waiting grooms and tramped straight across the carefully raked gravel paths, climbing each terrace towards the fortress itself.

Malik raised his voice. "Where are we heading?"

He did not expect an answer, but the leader surprised him by complying. "We're taking you to the Master."

"Really? That is good news. I did not expect an audience to soon," Malik replied, making no effort to hide his surprise.

The Templar shrugged. "Saves us time. The Master can read a man's intentions with a look. He'll spy out if you are an honest man, or a coward." He dismissed Malik with a sniff and turned back to the pathway.

Malik considered the prospect without enthusiasm. He doubted that any man could divine intent from a glance. With an Eden fragment, though-who knew? The orbs were powerful.

As they climbed he realized that the garden was as full of people as the fields outside the canyon had been empty. There were more villagers here than in Masyaf. They worked industriously, pruning or digging or carrying water. None of them looked around at the Templars as they passed. Nobody spoke. At first Malik thought that the peasants were afraid, but nobody even seemed to notice them.

_They have the same look as the soldiers_, he thought, and felt a trickle of chill sweat snake down his spine. Malik examined the villagers closely, trying to steal a better look at their faces. He did not realise that the knights had slowed until he had walked straight into the back of the man in front of him.

The lead knight's head snapped around. "Look where you're going, you clumsy peasant," he said.

"My apologies," Malik said in a tone that was not at all apologetic. He ducked his head to disguise the look of contempt upon his face. Keeping his eyes on the path, he followed the man up another tier of steps and into a small courtyard. Two men sat at the opposite end of the pool on a narrow stone bench. Their reflections in the still water were just visible in the dim light. One was heavily-built and broad. The other was as thin as a praying mantis.

They looked up as the soldiers approached. The stocky man inclined his head. "Nayir. What on earth have you brought me?"

The knight bowed. His silent companions stood motionless at his side. "Travellers, lord." His diction was a little clearer than it had been in the desert, his eyes a little brighter."Travellers who seek the Father of Understanding."

"Then they are welcome in the Garden of the West." The Master gathered his robes around him and stood up. The thin man followed him.

Assassins only bowed to their own Grand Master, but Malik judged it best to follow tradition. He ducked his head, making sure that Marîd mimicked him. "Our thanks," he said.

The Templar Nayir cleared his throat. "This is our Master, Al-Walid," he said. "And Ziri al-Ghurab, the right hand of our Master. It is they who will decide whether you are to stay."

Malik fixed his gaze on the dusty floor. He heard footsteps in front of him. "I am honoured," he said, and glanced up.

The Master of the Templars in Morocco had the eyes of a madman.

Malik had seen stranger things, but few so disconcerting. He took a step back involuntarily. He'd seen that look before.

_Al Mualim_, he thought.

_To be continued..._


	4. Chapter 4

An Assembly of Bones

An Assassin's Creed fan fiction by xahra99

_Chapter Four_.

_Masyaf._

The cellars of Masyaf had never been used for anything other than storage. The Assassins were not in the business of taking prisoners, and they did not drink wine.

The new Grand Master sat on a carpet in the deepest cellar and inhaled the dust of centuries. The air was clean and very dry. It smelt of cold stone. There was a broken storage cask in one corner. Altaïr had not bothered with theatrics. He was counting on the fact that the Jewish weapons merchant would be intimidated enough by the mere fact of being in the valley of the Assassins. The caves; clean and virtually soundproof, would ensure complete privacy.

Altaïr did not want any of the other Assassins to know what ben Salman had to say.

He sat as patiently as any hunter and waited for the sound of footsteps.

They came, eventually. The door creaked open on its worn leather hinges and two Assassin guards deposited the quaking form of Sahl ben Salman ar-Radaniyya on the carpet in front of Altaïr.

"Greetings, ben Salman," he said. "Please, sit."

Al-Afdal glanced nervously around. His face was pale in the light of the pine-pitch torches the guards carried. His kohl-lined eyes glittered with fear. His gaze slid from Altaïr's face like oil and raced over every detail of the small room like a mouse searching for an escape hole. He paid particular attention to the dark water stains on the cellar floor.

Altaïr waited patiently until ben Salman had composed himself sufficiently to return his gesture of welcome and then dismissed the guards. The merchant stood stock-still on the opposite side of the room, his back pressed firmly against the door as far away as he could get from Altaïr.

"Please sit down," he said once the guards' footsteps had died away.

Sahl ben Salman gave a little shake of his head, composed himself, and stepped forwards. He bent his knees with difficulty and sat down opposite Altaïr. "Greetings," he replied at last. His voice was quiet and steady, but his hands shook. "What–what-" He paused and cleared his throat. "What can I do for you?"

"You are an arms merchant in Jerusalem," said Altaïr. "Am I correct?"

The merchant nodded. "Yes." He frowned, glanced down at his trembling hands and tucked them firmly into his embroidered sleeves. "Did you-did you wish to buy?"

Altaïr shook his head. "We have enough knives in Masyaf," he said, giving the merchant a moment to think about this before he continued. "You have sold weapons recently."

"Of course," Sahl ben Salman said.

Altaïr waited. Fear loosened the old man's tongue, and he did not have to wait long before the merchant continued. "I'm the best weapons merchant in Jerusalem. Yes, I sell weapons. Scores of them, every day."

"This sale was different," Altaïr said. "It would have been a large order, more than you could supply. You would have dealt with it personally."

The merchant nodded reluctantly. He sweated despite the cool air. Kohl ran down his sallow cheeks."There have been a few orders fitting that description. We're a big supplier."

"How many within the last few weeks?" Altaïr demanded.

"One," ben Salman admitted.

"Who bought them?"

Mohammad al-Afdal shook his head slowly. A bead of sweat dripped from his nose. "I have a policy never to reveal information on any of my customers. Details of orders and such. Looks bad, you see. Local wars, etcetera. Gives one side an unfair advantage. That's why people buy from me. They know I can be trusted. I wouldn't remain a merchant for long if I gave away secrets like that."

"You won't remain a merchant for long if you don't," said Altaïr.

Sahl ben Salman's shoulders trembled beneath his fine-spun linen robes. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed nervously. The chains that hung around his neck chinked together. "Of course, _sayyid_. I-I understand. But-"

"You don't."

Altaïr's voice cut the air like a knife. Ben Salman jerked back as if he had been stabbed. He opened his mouth, thought better of speaking, and then closed it.

"It is you that does not understand," Altaïr continued. "You are in _my_ castle. I must know who bought the weapons, and you are one of the few men who can help me. If you don't-" He shrugged. "Nobody will hear you. Nobody will even know that you are here until it is far too late. And even if they did, it would not do any good."

Sahl ben Salman sat rigidly, as if he had been nailed to the carpet. Altaïr watched ben Salman consider the threat and wondered if he would carry it out. He had done far worse to men for much less reason. Torture was not against the Creed.

_Nothing is true_, he thought wryly. _Everything is permitted_.

"Of course," he said after a while, "nobody expects you to give your information away. There must be payment."

Ben Salman looked up at his with the suddenly hopeful eyes of a prisoner destined for execution who had suddenly received a last-minute pardon. "I-payment, _sayyid_?"

"Of course," said Altaïr.

"But-"

Altaïr's eyes narrowed beneath his hood. He had not expected more questions."What now?"

"You will forgive me," the old man said carefully," but money's no good if I don't live to spend it." He wiped kohl from his eyes with the back of his hand.

"Rest assured that you will live," Altair said, more gently. "And more, you'll gain gold. And the gratitude of the Assassins, which is worth more than rubies."

"And I'll leave this place?"

Altaïr nodded. "You'll walk out of here a free man. More importantly, you will walk out of here. And that is what we both want, after all. "

Sahl ben Salman swallowed. "Then I owe you the utmost gratitude. And my apologies, which I assure you, are most sincerely offered."

Altaïr nodded gravely. "Your apologies are accepted in the same spirit. You have no reason to doubt me. If nothing else, the Assassins always keep our vows." He gave the merchant a moment to recover. "Now. Did your buyers give a name?"

The merchant nodded. "They did," he said hoarsely. "But it won't help you."

"Why not?"

Ben Salman swallowed. He ducked his head as if he expected Altaïr to strike him and said, "He called himself Shahryar."

"The king from the Thousand and One Nights." Altaïr said flatly. "A fabrication."

The merchant nodded. "I knew it at once, but I do not insist that each buyer must give their true name. Only that they give one."

"It is a policy that you might do well to alter."

"I had the same thought myself," Sahl ben Salman said wryly. His knuckles gleamed palely as he knotted his hands in his lap. Several large rings adorned his knobby fingers. "But I have more. Your buyers were not Persian, despite the name they gave."

"Franj, then?"

"No." The weapons merchant shook his head. "Their skin was dark as mine. I think they were from Ifriqiya."

Altaïr frowned." Africa's a large place. Which country?"

"I can't be sure, but I think they were from the Mahgreb. The sunset lands."

Altaïr's frown deepened. _Morocco_, he thought. "Any more?"

"They spoke of an orchard," Sahl ben Salman said.

Altaïr tensed. "You are sure?"

"Sure as I'm sitting here." The arms merchant had stopped shaking by now. "They mentioned it several times."

_The Garden of the Hesperides_, Altaïr thought. _It has to be_.

He wondered what Templars from the Mahgreb wanted with weapons purchased in Jerusalem, and then decided that he did not particularly want to know the answer.

_Nothing good, I'll wager_, he thought.

"Who were they?" Sahl al-Salman asked cautiously.

Altaïr had no intention of making the Jerusalem merchant privy to any Assassin secrets. "Enemies," he said shortly, but ben Salman caught the rebuke for what it was, and bowed in apology. The old man had recovered some measure of grace now that he did not fear for his life.

"I am sorry, _sayyid_," he said. "You are gracious indeed-please forgive me."

"It is of no concern," Altaïr said. "Now tell me, what did you sell?"

Sahl ben Salman told him.

Altaïr had to try very hard indeed to keep all emotion from his face. It was no wonder that the merchant had attempted to keep his client's custom. Sahl ben Salman, he calculated, had made enough money from the transaction to purchase a small village. _No surprise he was reluctant._

"Did you supply it all?"

"We had no time. He took what I had, and-"

"He's _still here_?"

"Unfortunately not," confessed ben Salman, transformed from reluctant prisoner to willing accomplice. "Shahryar told me that he had business elsewhere." He brushed cellar dust from his fine robe. "We were to have the weapons ready for him in a month."

Altaïr wondered what the Templar was up to. One month was certainly not enough time to make the round trip to the Mahgreb and back. "Delay," he told the old man.

Sahl ben Salman looked surprised, and Altaïr thought angrily that he had no right to be. "De-delay, _sayyid_?"

"Yes," Altaïr said.

"But how?"

"I do not care. Come up with an excuse. The wrong kind of fuel, a labourers' strike. It will go badly for you if you deliver those weapons, despite our agreement."

Ben Salman shook his head. "It will go badly for me if I don't."

"It will go worse if you do," Altaïr assured him.

"But the money-"

"You will be rewarded," Altaïr told him. He was grateful that the merchant still lacked enough confidence that he did not enquire about the amount of the reward. Altaïr, after all, had not investigated the Assassins' treasury. His gratitude lasted a fleeting instant before the merchant regarded him with kohl-smudged eyes and said "You're expecting a siege."

Altaïr neither confirmed nor denied the rumour. He said nothing, which seemed to be the safest option.

Sahl ben Salman continued. "It's obvious. But who? The Ayyubids are in disarray, and I thought the Franj were dead and gone." His eyes narrowed. "Are they back?"

"There are other lands than these," Altaïr said obliquely.

"Then those lands are cursed. The Franj are evil men." Sahl ben Salman, content that Altaïr did not for the moment mean him harm, spat on the floor. "They persecute my people. Their king the Lion-heart murdered many of us at Acre."

Altaïr could not dispute that fact. "I'd have thought you welcomed war," he said casually. "It must be good for business."

The merchant shook his head. "No-one welcomes war like that. And, thank the Prophet, there are always mercenaries. "

"There are," Altaïr agreed. "I hope this meeting has not inconvenienced you in anyway way?"

Ben Salman was far too prudent to argue. "Of course not, _sayyid_."

"As I said, you will be rewarded."

The weapons merchant inclined his head. This gesture of stately dignity was only slightly undermined by his dishevelled appearance."Of course, _sayyid_."

Altaïr nodded. "And, as I said, you must never speak of this to any man. Or you must fear the knife in the night. And you must never again have dealings with this man Shahryar. Do this, and we shall be allies. Cross me, and this whole country will suffer. You most of all. Trust me on this."

Sahl ben Salman bowed. A single bead of sweat rolled down from his temple and soaked into his fine linen collar. "Certainly, _sayyid_. If it pleases you."

"Thank you for your information," Altaïr said. "It has been most illuminating."

Ben Salman nodded. "One last thing, _sayyid_. Before I leave."

"Of course-"

The merchant raised his head and looked Altaïr in the eyes for the first time since the conversation had started. "The people remember the Franj," he said.

Altaïr blinked. He had expected many things, but not this. "Continue."

"Jerusalem remembers, _sayyid_. I have heard it in the streets. You fought a great war for us against the Franj. Against evil men of all races. The city remembers. Many of us helped you in small ways before. We would do so again. Only say the word."

"I hope it will not come to that," Altaïr said.

"Nevertheless," said ben Salman. "Our aid is freely given."

"And gratefully accepted."

"Unlike mine, _sayyid_." The merchant even sounded regretful.

"Certainly. I will see you are rewarded as I said."

"My most sincere thanks," Sahl ben Salman said gratefully.

"And mine for your aid. Go, ben Salman. _Ma'as salaam_. May your business prosper, your sins be forgiven, and may your merchandise not remain unsold. The guards are waiting at the other end of the cellars. They will return you to your home and family."

Ben Salman bowed. "And may your castle always remain standing," he said as he got up. "_Ma'as salaam_."

Despite his eloquent speech and newfound confidence the merchant did not linger, but dismissed himself quickly and left, shuffling as fast as his old feet would carry him towards the door and to daylight. He carried one of the pitch pine torches with him, leaving Altaïr alone in the dim light.

_The merchant guessed a siege_, he thought. _Not so hard. We are in a castle, after all, and the quantities of weaponry involves leaves little room for doubt. For all his guesses, ben Salman has no idea who planned this._

_And I-I have answers to my questions, but also new questions. Such a pity that it is always thus._

He thought about discussing what he had just learned with the _rafiqs_, but decided against it. He would wait until he had learned more. Many of the _rafiqs_ lived far from Masyaf. Calling them together would take time.

I must wait until I have more evidence. But I must talk to somebody...

Altaïr sat for a long while in the quiet cellars afterwards, thinking. After a while, chilled to the bone by more than the cool air, he went to find Abbas. The surly lieutenant was on guard duty, but he called another Assassin in his place and followed Altaïr readily enough.

"What news?"

Altaïr shook his head, and Abbas snorted. "Bad, then. I told you the Persians would not like it."

"It's not the Persians we have to worry about." Altaïr said. "It's the Templars." He took a secret pleasure at Abbas' expression as the words sank slowly in.

"_What_? But- the Templars-we-_you_-killed them. That's done and gone. I thought-"

"So did I," Altaïr said. "But there are Templars buying weapons in Jerusalem." He outlined what he had learned from the merchant.

Abbas sucked air between his teeth "A siege. That was a bloody short peace."

Altaïr nodded.

"It scarcely seems possible. We defeated them not two years ago. You'd think they'd know when to keep their heads down. But why now? And," his expression turning suddenly calculating, "why me?"

"I have in mind to raise you to _rafiq_." Altaïr told him.

"I won't grovel," Abbas warned him. "I'm nothing like those Persian toadies."

"That's why I need you. I need men who will tell me what they think without pause. You can decline, of course, but I'd think carefully. There may be dark times ahead."

Abbas grimaced. "Of course there are. I'd never land a _rafiq_'s job in times of peace. But the Templars? So soon? Are you _certain_?"

Altaïr nodded. "As long as the Templars exist, they shall try to bend us to their will," he said. "Of that I am certain. And we have not enough supplies to defend Masyaf for long."

"Well," Abbas said, "let's hope we don't have to."

_To be continued..._


	5. Chapter 5

An Assembly of Bones

An Assassin's Creed fan fiction by xahra99

_Chapter Five_.

_The Garden of the Hesperides, Morocco_

The only sound in the garden was the noise of the wind in the branches of the apple trees.

_The Eden fragment is here_, thought Malik.

He felt a sudden chill. The hackles on the back of his neck rose like a frightened hound's.

If Malik had been a wiser man, he would have run. If he had been a more foolish man, he would have killed both Templars on the spot and probably died himself. But he was an Assassin to the core, so he gritted his teeth and raised his chin.

The Templar Master was a tall man. He was dressed like a Berber lord in a long striped robe with a red sash and a small black turban. The only thing which distinguished him from a hundred other men was his eyes. They were as piercing as an arrowhead, and a curious pale green.

As Malik stared, he began to wonder if his first impression of the man had been wrong. Al-Walid's intense expression, which Malik had taken for fanaticism at first, seemed now kindly and reassuring. His strange eyes became less strange. He seemed both benevolent and noble; a man, Malik now realized, in which one might place an absolute trust. He dropped instinctively to his knees. Beside him, Marîd gazed open-mouthed. Malik reached for the back of the boy's robes and yanked him down with him.

Al-Walid smiled. "You have come a long way," he said in a voice like rocks rolling down a hill. "Why have you travelled so far?"

"I was searching for a great sage," Malik said. "It seems that I have found one."

The Master seemed to take this as his due. He nodded, watching Malik all the time with his piercing green eyes. Malik had read many books. He had always scoffed at the flowery compliments men like ibn Shaddad pressed upon their patrons. Now he realised that ibn Shaddad had not gone far enough.

_This man towers over Al Mualim_, he thought. _Like the shadow of God upon earth. A priceless emerald among pearls._

The voice of al-Walid wrenched Malik from his reverie. "You came to seek a sage," the Master said. He and al-Ghurab exchanged glances. "Is that the only reason?"

Malik felt suddenly ashamed. The emotion came from nowhere and flooded every corner of his soul. Of course the Master knew all his secrets. It seemed ludicrous to continue his charade in the face of such omnipotence. "I-" His voice caught, rough as any tongue-tied farmer.

"What?" Al-Walid smiled broadly. His smile illuminated his face and filled Malik with awe, reverence and respect. Such sentiments had previously been foreign to him. Now, they seemed only natural.

Malik had spent years travelling. He had seen the towers of Timbuktu, the sunsets of the Sahara and the pyramids of Egypt. None of them had moved him as much as the mere presence of al-Walid.

_So this is what awe feels like_, he thought.

"Do you have any sins you wish to confess?" the Master's companion al Ghurab asked sharply. His harsh voice sliced through Malik's pleasant haze for a moment before the fog rolled in again. He looked at al-Walid, who nodded. "It is a sad thing," he said in his pleasant baritone, "We stand upon the threshold between the old world and the new. It is a wonderful time. The new world will be a better place where all shall live as equals. But evil men would see this dream destroyed. Even one bad apple-" he reached up and plucked a fruit from a nearby tree, "may ruin a basket. Corruption may infect even a clean sword cut."

"We must cauterise such infection," the thin man al-Ghurab said, "with fire and the sword."

Al-Walid nodded. The heavy muscles in his forearm bunched as he squeezed his fist. Chunks of apple pulp and juice trickled between his fingers.

"To enter," al-Ghurab continued, "you must renounce any evil in your heart, and accept the truth."

Malik could not help but agree. Guilt curled like a snake in his chest. "I-" he tried again, but could not speak.

"For this is surely Paradise on Earth," al-Walid said gently. "And did the angels not question our Lord, saying 'Wilt thou place in our Garden one who will make mischief and shed blood, whilst we do celebrate your praises and glorify Thy holy name?' For I know the secrets of heaven and of earth, and I know what you reveal, and what you conceal as well."

Malik did not doubt it. Beside him, Marîd's mouth dropped slightly open. Still he held his tongue.

_Something is wrong_, he realised.

_Of course_, his conscience needled. _You lie._

_No...Something else. The Apple..._

The Master frowned. "Speak, then," he commanded.

Malik opened his mouth to confess everything -

And al-Walid's pleasurable compulsion crashed headlong into years of Assassin training and world-weary cynicism.

The Assassin training won.

Malik shook his head and looked around. The sunlight blinded him. He felt as if he had a head of fumes from last night's smoking. It seemed impossible that nobody had noticed his change of heart, yet al-Walid still smiled encouragingly at him as if nothing had happened. He became suddenly aware of the presence of the three Templar guards standing silently behind him.

"The Master ordered you to speak," al-Ghurab said in a voice like tearing paper.

Marîd gaped admiringly at the Master's lieutenant. Malik resisted the urge to smack him around the head. Instead he let his eyes drop to the path.

_I will break your power, Templars_, he thought, keeping his gaze fixed on the flagstones, _and bring your castle down around your ears. And all I have to do is find the Eden fragment you keep hidden here._

"My only confession," he said, struggling to keep his voice level, "is that I cannot be a better servant."

Both men relaxed. Malik felt some of the pressure slip. ""Ah, good," the Master said."A loyal servant. Nothing better."

Ziri al-Ghurab's right hand slid away from the hilt of his sword. "What is your occupation, servant?" he asked, sounding both disappointed and bored.

"I was a librarian," Malik told them. "Before that, a soldier."

"I have his sword here," interjected the guard Nayir. He untied Malik's battered sabre from his sash and handed it to Al-Ghurab. The Master's lieutenant examined the handle cursorily before he drew the blade. The Damascene steel gleamed in the last light of the sun. "A good blade," he said in surprise.

"A family heirloom," Malik said, although the comment had not been directly addressed to him.

The Master's lieutenant tucked the blade into his belt. "I will take this for safekeeping," he said, stroking the plain hilt.

"You will not need it," al-Walid said to Malik. "There is no place for weapons in Eden."

_There is in mine_, Malik thought. Protesting would have been extremely foolish, and so he did not. _I'll merely add my blade to the list of things I need to steal_.

"We shall see that you are provided for," the Master said. "You are our brother now. We shall keep you safe from harm." He frowned. "What was your profession?"

"Librarian, _sayyid_," Malik said. His knees had begun to ache from the cold stone, but he made no attempt to rise.

"You can read?" Al-Ghurab did nothing to hide his surprise. .

"Yes, _sayyid_." Malik tried hard to mimic the monotone of a good servant. He had no idea if he succeeded.

Ziri al-Ghurab looked highly sceptical at this. He gestured to Marîd."And the boy?"

"He is training," said Malik.

"Training? How much training does it take to become a librarian?"

"You would be surprised," Malik murmured. He risked a closer glance at the Master's lieutenant. Like his master, al-Ghurab was Berber through and through, though, unlike his master, his face was deeply weather-lined. He wore kohl around his eyes to protect them from the sun, giving his face a sinister aspect. A mail-shirt covered his stained white robe. His turban was red and his boots were of yellow leather.

_Al-Walid may be the Master_, Malik thought, _but his companion would be the more dangerous man in a fight._

Al-Ghurab spared Malik the most meagre of glances. "Take him to the castle," he ordered Nayir. "He will be of some use in the library. Then return here."

"Thank you, lord," Malik murmured while his heart spat insults.

The guards bowed deeply. Malik felt gloved hands on his shoulders, jerking him to his feet. Another guard tapped Marîd on his shoulder and the boy started as if waking from a dream.

"May the Father of Understanding guide you," al-Walid said.

The guards chorused a reply. Malik joined them reluctantly. "May the Father of understanding guide you," he repeated. The words were harder to say than he'd thought. They left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Al-Walid and his henchman bowed and returned to their conversation.

The guards took Malik up the hill and into the fortress itself. Their pace was monotonously slow. The soldiers set a slow if monotonous pace. Malik used the time to look around. He had thought that the gardens of the castle held only apple trees, but he realised that he had been wrong. There were oranges as well as apples, roses, myrtle trees, and jasmine. Malik looked more closely at the fruit and realized that the oranges were nearly ready to ripen.

_Have I travelled so long_? he wondered, and glanced around.

The Templar gardens did not lack for water, despite their desert surroundings. Streams trickled between every flowerbed. Water cascaded between the terraces into pools stocked with goldfish and carp. The pools cooled the air and made the heat of the sun bearable, even pleasant. The scent of flowers hung sweet and heavy in the evening air.

It all made Masyaf's garden resemble a patch of scrubby brush.

_But we had more on our mind than gardening_, Malik thought. He looked up at the low adobe walls of the fortress. _And Masyaf is far more defensible than this pleasure-garden, pretty as it is. I would choose high walls over flowers any day_.

Despite his initial contempt, the castle's adobe walls loomed high above their heads as they approached. They entered through a small gate in the south wall; an altogether less ornate affair than the main northern gate, though not, as Malik noticed, less defensible. The gatehouse was a massive brickwork block with a keystone arch in the centre. Its stones were fitted together so tightly that it would be impossible to squeeze a knife-blade between them, and the entrance passageway twice turned through right-angles to confuse intruders. Once or twice Malik thought he sensed people watching them from between thin arrow-slits high up in the passage walls, but he saw no flicker of movement.

The buildings inside the castle walls were less impressive. This was the servants' domain, and although the kitchen maids and water-boys walked without a spring in their step and kept their eyes upon the ground, it was as busy as the Grand Bazaar at Cairo. People rushed in all directions. Nayir caught the ear of a small boy as he hurried past, intent on some errand. "Master's orders," he said. "Take these to the library."

The boy nodded and gestured to Malik and Marîd to follow him. He led them up a flight of creaking rush-floored stairs to a narrow door so low that Malik, who was not a tall man, had to duck his head to enter.

As he straightened from his uncomfortable crouch the boy ducked back through the low door and closed it behind him. Cleverly camouflaged, the door blended into the adobe so well that even Malik, who was used to noticing things out of the ordinary, could hardly make out its outline. _A servant's door_, he realized. _Doubtless there is a more impressive entrance elsewhere._

He brushed grains of dirt from his sleeves and looked around.

The first thing he saw was books.

There were manuscripts everywhere; more than Malik had ever seen in Al Mualim's library at Masyaf. More, perhaps, than existed in the fabled rooms of the _Bait-al-Hikma_ in Baghdad. Each set of shelves –and there were many shelves-were nearly as tall as the room. Every bookcase was topped with a cornice of carved wood that fanned out to protect the books from insects or mud from the adobe ceiling. Books filled every niche.

Malik walked over to the nearest shelf. Marîd trailed behind him. He picked up a book and turned it over in his hands, admiring the binding. The book was made of thin pasteboard sheets, stitched with silk and bound in leather. Embossed and gilded patterns curled around its cover.

Malik opened the book carefully. The text was in Arabic; a translation of an older Greek work on rhetoric. He closed the cover gently and opened another just as elaborate. This one was an atlas of the known world annotated in elaborate Kufic script. Malik was struck by how little it resembled the map shown to him by the Eden fragment.

He picked up another book, flicking through it quickly. Then another, and another, and another. The books were written in Arabic, in Syriac, in Latin, and in what he was pretty sure were Greek or Aramaic. Their topics were diverse as their tongues. Rhetoric, politics, town planning, medicine. A long treatise on artillery. Another on siege warfare.

_Everything you need_, Malik thought, _to build a perfect world_.

He stepped back to survey the spines of the books and realized that there was something very odd about the collection. There were no religious texts, or, at least, none that he could see.

He heard an angry voice behind him. "What are you doing here?"

Malik spun. An old man advanced towards him. The faded brown wool of his robe blended with the adobe walls. His bare feet made no sound on the carpeted floor.

"What are you doing here?" the old man repeated. His voice was undoubtedly aggressive, but his eyes looked simply tired. The effect was not threatening. Malik would have picked him up with one hand. Marîd could probably have picked him up with one hand. He looked around for the boy, but he was nowhere in sight.

"We just arrived," Malik said. "You're the librarian?"

The old man nodded. He coughed and spat into a scrap of rag that he pulled from his robe. "Who are you?"

"We're your new assistants," Malik said.

The librarian regarded Malik without curiosity. There was no surprise in his milky eyes. The effects of the Eden fragment sat lightly on him, Malik realized, but they affected him all the same. "The Master sent you?"

Malik nodded.

"You can read? You have some skill?"

"I was a bookseller in Jerusalem," Malik told him. "I made maps."

"Then you'll be useful. Your name?"

"Malik," said Malik.

"I am Abu Tariq," the old man said. "You might as well start now. I'll show you the place," He waved a skinny arm. "This is the private library of the Master and his aides. Nobody else comes in here without the permission of the Master."

Malik nodded. From the richness of the room he had expected nothing else.

"That's part of your job. Don't let anyone else in. For you first task...hmm, let's see." He paused, then pointed. "That trunk over there. Sort the books. Shelve anything useful. Leave poetry, tales-all that outdated useless stuff-in the box. It'll go on the fire later."

"Why?"

Abu Tariq looked surprised. "Because those are the Master's orders."

"Of course," Malik agreed hurriedly.

"May the Father of Understanding guide you in your task," Abu Tariq said.

Malik nodded. The librarian frowned placidly, and did not walk away. Malik realised that he was waiting for a response.

"May the Father of Understanding guide you," he said reluctantly.

The old librarian nodded and wandered off. Malik went looking for the trunk.

He found both the truck and Marîd concealed behind a tall set of shelves. The trunk was large enough to hide a dead body. Marîd perched cross-legged on its lid. Malik swatted at him with his hand. "Get off," he muttered, "The librarian's an old man, but we must be cautious. Don't say or do anything that might get you into trouble. Understand?"

The boy did not answer.

Malik turned to him in mild irritation. "Did you hear?"

To his surprise, his apprentice gave him only a vacant smile. "Certainly," he agreed. "For the Master teaches that treachery may be concealed even in the hearts of ordinary folk. Even the guise of an innocent dove may mask a serpent."

Malik blinked. He had fielded many strange replies from Marîd over the months, but none had come in the form of Templar rhetoric. "Marîd?" he said irritably. "Act like an Assassin."

The boy blinked."An Assassin?" he asked. "Why should I do that?

_Because you are one_, Malik thought. "Just do as I say," he snapped. "And-"

Marîd interrupted him. "The Assassins are nothing but the jackals of Masyaf," he said in a voice that was not his own. "They are slaves to a lost cause, and they have not even the wit to realise it. We shall take their castle by force, and kill them all. It is our duty."

Malik didn't even think. He simply dealt with the threat as he had dealt with so many before. He straightened from the chest of books, grabbed the front of the boy's ragged jellaba with his good hand and lifted him up to the low window-ledge. The library was high on the second floor of the castle. The gardens dropped away below them. Peasants toiled like toy men in the dust. Marîd's body was as limp as a rag doll. He did not look down. He did not even blink.

"This has gone too far," Malik snarled.

Marîd did not seem frightened in the least. "You will never understand," he told Malik. "But I-I have pledged myself to another cause. We will have peace...Al-Walid will have peace."

Malik looked over the boy's shoulder and down at the ground far below. Marîd's travel-stained rags were the same dusty colour as the wall's adobe bricks. Nobody would notice him from this far away. Even if they did see something, they'd think it just a tattered strip of cloth. By the time they realized otherwise it would be too late, and if questioned, Malik could always say the boy had fallen.

"Enough!" he snapped. "Who do you serve?"

"I serve the Templars," Marîd said. The wind tugged at his hair. The ragged scarf fell from his neck and drifted away in the wind.

"Then you're a traitor."

"I'm not a traitor. Altaïr has betrayed us! He's closed our eyes to the truth!"

"It's not the truth!" Malik hissed. "The Eden fragment's clouded your mind!" He dragged the boy an inch further over the sill, twisting his hand in his clothing to get a good grip.

Marîd only smiled. "My mind is clear. My conscience, too."

"Speak sense-"

"I'm not afraid to die."

Malik held the boy at arm's length. Marîd's calves and his dirty feet were the only part of his body now touching the sill. "You'll die, then."

"I am not afrai-"

Malik let go.

The boy made no move to grasp at Malik's hand as he dropped away. He fell silently backwards. His mouth was an oval of surprise. The tattered hem of his robe slipped over the windowsill.

Malik waited only a fraction of a second before he snatched the boy's ankle. He leaned out of the window and held on tightly, praying that the boy's leg would not slip out of his grasp. Marîd jolted to a halt. His body hung head downwards in the cool evening air, greasy hair obscuring his face. Beneath him, a nightingale sang softly as the peasant gardeners toiled on.

"Who do you serve?" Malik shouted.

Marîd gasped in terror. His hands clawed at empty air. He sniffed and began to sob.

Malik sighed in relief. He let out a breath he had not realised he had been holding. His fingers locked tightly around Marîd's bony ankle as he hauled the boy back up to the sill and deposited him face-first on the library carpet. Marîd's body had lost its awful stillness. He curled into a ball on the floor and cried harder.

Malik let him weep for a few moments before he poked him with his foot. "Get up."

Marîd ignored him. He pressed his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them.

Tears soaked into his cheap robe. Malik reached down and yanked the boy to his feet. When Marîd was more or less standing he repeated, "Who do you serve?"

The boy sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. His reply was inaudible. Malik slapped him on the head, which provoked a fresh flood of tears but at least produced an answer. "The Assassins-"

"Then act like it." Malik said curtly. "Though it's not your fault. The Templars have a way of controlling human minds." He recalled the brief adoration he had felt for the Templar Master. "It's hard to fight."

"You did," Marîd snivelled.

"Only just. And it wasn't easy." One thing he had no intention of telling the boy was just how hard it had been. "Besides, I promised your father I'd look after you."

The boy snivelled. "He wasn't my father. And," he glanced up accusingly, "you nearly _dropped_ me."

Malik shrugged again. "Sometimes fear combats the brainwashing," he said. He'd seen it once before, in the Masyaf villagers affected by the powers of Al Mualim's Eden fragment. Faced with _fidai'i_ steel or the power of the Apple, several of the villagers had broken down as base instinct warred against compulsion. Many hadn't.

"Well, it worked," Marîd said indistinctly as he wiped tears from his eyes. "I'm sorry," he added.

"Don't apologise. Half of Masyaf were the same, back in the wars."

Marîd met Malik's eyes for the first time since he had seen the Master. "What did you do?"

"We killed them." Malik told him.

Marîd sniffed. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and, with the boundless elasticity of youth, seemed to forget about the whole episode. He stared around him with wide eyes at the stacks of books. "Where are we?"

"In the castle," Malik told him. "If nothing else, the Templars' power demonstrated that there is an Eden fragment here. We shall find it."

The boy blinked. "We're in the Templar castle?"

Malik nodded. "Yes."

"Then we'll steal it? I want to hurt them. I-I was afraid. Assassins don't fear death. Not ever."

Malik sighed. The Assassins made precious little allowances for ten-year-olds, but they made some. "It suits us to pretend that we do not," he said. "In truth, though, it is braver to face fear and overcome it than to never fear at all. We will have our revenge. For now we must masquerade as scholars in the service of al-Walid and the Templars."

The boy looked bemused. "The castle," he said hesitantly. "I remember it. A massive building. What do we do now, Master?"

"I have told you before," Malik said automatically, "that I am not your Master. And comments like that will kill us both soon enough if you do not learn to hold your tongue." He flipped open the lid of the chest and picked up a richly bound book. He slid his thumb under the flap of the blinding and flicked it open.

Marîd nodded. "We'll fool them all, Mas-I mean, Malik," he hastily amended. "Do you think we'll succeed?"

Malik wondered whether to tell the boy the truth. "Maybe," he said.

Marîd nodded in satisfaction and peered down at the book in Malik's hand. "What's that language?"

"Latin," Malik said briefly. As he turned over the book's thin pages, he noticed a verse which seemed familiar.

_'Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom_,' he read, _'and spread his wings towards the south?_

_Does the eagle soar at your command, and build his nest on high?_

_He dwells on a high cliff and stays there at night; a rocky crag is his stronghold_

_From thee he seeks his food, his eyes detect it from afar._

_His young ones feast on blood, and where the slain are, there is he_.*'

Malik smiled.

"You know," he said, half to Marîd and half to himself, "I think we will be fortunate."

_To be continued..._

*Job 39:26 to 39:30.


	6. Chapter 6

An Assembly of Bones

An Assassin's Creed fan fiction by xahra99

_Chapter Six_.

_Morocco. Several weeks later._

**"**For there are many rebellious people," thundered al-Walid, "full of meaningless talk and deception. These unruly folk must be silenced." He paused while his gaze raked the room."To the pure, all things are pure. But to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. They claim to know God, but deny Him by their very actions. Such unworthy people must be purged."

Malik would have rolled his eyes if he had been able. Instead, he glanced around the dimly lit hall. Dust-motes glittered in the late afternoon light which streamed in through the hall's narrow windows. Half the castle's servants sat around him on the floor. Malik knew the other half would assemble for their daily dose of Templar preaching later in the day. The men and woman around him watched al-Walid with rapt expressions.

Malik tried and succeeded to stifle a yawn.

_The street preachers of Jerusalem are far more entertaining_, he thought.

Somebody coughed to his left. Malik looked around, but could not distinguish the sick man amongst the throng of fellow servants. The brainwashed Templar servants absorbed every detail of the Master's preaching. They sat enthralled; their faces turned towards the Master like flowers to the sun. The entire ragged congregation nodded in unison every time the Master paused for breath, which he did frequently. Malik would have known there was something wrong even if he had not known about the Eden fragments. He had never known that amount of people all agree about _anything _before.

_The sooner I find the Eden fragment and escape, the less I have to listen to this rambling_, he thought. _I had not expected to be bored to death in the fortress of my enemies._

He did not expect escape to be a problem. The castle was made from mud and straw. Its tall walls offered no challenge to a determined Assassin, and Malik was nothing if not determined.

The Master continued his sermon. "For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people! We wait for the blessed hope-for the appearance of our great Lord, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people who are his very own." Al-Walid spread his arms wide. "You are those people!"

The servants murmured assent. As they did so, Malik heard the coughing start again He turned his head just in time to see a thin man double over where he sat to hack up a clot of blood onto the floor. His face was ashen despite the honey light. When al-Walid's diatribe had finished the sick servant sat bent on the floor for a moment before he followed his companions outside.

Malik left soon after and headed upstairs to al-Walid's library. He found Marîd exactly where he had left him, struggling with a page of Latin translation. The boy looked up eagerly as Malik approached. "Can I stop now?"

"Have you finished translating the text?" Malik asked.

"No," Marîd said sulkily. "But-"

"Then you may not stop," Malik told him. "It is said that the path to Paradise is easier for those who take it seeking knowledge. Would you rather attend one of al-Walid's lectures?"

Marîd shook his head. Ever since arriving he had been terrified of the Master and his henchman al-Ghurab. Attendance at the daily assemblies was not compulsory, although Malik suspected this was because the Master and his followers could not conceive of anybody not going. He had tried to keep Marîd away from the gatherings as much as possible without attracting attention. The boy's acting skills were not on a par with Malik's, and he worried that Marîd would inadvertently let slip his attention and give himself away.

The boy turned back to his work. Malik moved to the window. The sun had nearly set behind the western mountains. A sickle moon glowed in the indigo sky above the dark fangs of the peaks.

Malik rested his elbows on the window-sill and gazed up at the keep's tall towers. He had not thought that it would be easy to locate the Eden fragment; but he had expected it to be easier than this.

_We've retrieved the orbs before_, he thought. _It has not been that hard._ _Although it's true that none of the artefacts we looted were in Templar hands. _

Malik had observed from both Altaïr and Al Mualim that owners of an Eden fragment liked to have the artefact close by. He had noticed al-Walid touch his chest a few times while preaching, but he had seen no Eden fragment.

The walls of the castle loomed temptingly above him. Malik would have liked nothing better than to climb from the window and explore every chamber of the fortress, but caution held him back. Every one of the Templar servants was a potential spy. He'd managed to creep out a few times in the dead of night. He had not dared to take Marîd with him. He doubted that this would keep the boy from Templar vengeance if he was unlucky enough to be captured, but it was better than nothing.

He tore his gaze from the high towers and stared out towards the mountains. The view in the twilight reminded him of the Jebel Ansariye near Masyaf. There were many similarities. Life in the Templar fortress was not so different from life in the castle of the Assassins.

Although, he thought, _Al Mualim was never one for public preaching. I'd wager that Altaïr will follow in his footsteps in that aspect, if not in others_.

A harsh cough interrupted Malik's thoughts. He looked down at the gardens below. The moonlight was bright enough that he could see a dark shape huddled against the base of the castle walls. He recognised the sound of the man's hacking cough from afternoon assembly, although he did not know his name. The Templars did not encourage conversation among their servants, and most of the servants had little to say even if Malik had asked.

The noise was not repeated. Malik put the servant from his mind. He turned from the window into the library's warm lamplight and settled down to work.

It was late before he doused his lamp. Marîd was already asleep; huddled in a bundle of blankets on a carpet in the corner of the room. Abu Tariq fussed about the shelves around him, but the boy did not stir. Malik knew from experience that Marîd would and could sleep through an earthquake if given half a chance.

He wiped his pen with a tattered cloth and laid it down ready for the next day's work. As he did so he caught the sound of a coughing fit from the fortress gardens. Malik walked to the window and looked outside. The suck servant he had noticed earlier was still there. He had hardly moved at all. His silhouette was nearly invisible in the fragrant darkness.

"There is a sick man outside." Malik called to Abu Tariq.

The old librarian shrugged. "One of the gardeners, no doubt. Have you not heard his coughing interrupting our assemblies? He'll be with our Lord soon."

Malik looked at the old man doubtfully. The Assassins' surgeon hadn't been the best in Syria. He had not needed to be. The majority of Assassin injuries tended to be terminal in nature. He had, however, tended Malik's wounds with skill and compassion and Malik had respected him for it. It was thanks to the doctor's hard work that he had lost his left arm rather than his life. "Don't you have an infirmary?" he asked.

"No," Abu Tariq replied. "We have no need. You should pray to the Lord and our Master. If it is God's will that the man be healed, then he shall be healed. If it is God's wish that he should die, then he will die. It is no concern of ours."

"Of course not," Malik said without any trace of sarcasm.

He heard the coughing continue as he tidied his things away, blew out the lamp and locked the doors of the library. Abu Tariq wandered away to his own bed behind the bookshelves. Malik heard the now familiar sounds of the fortress as the castle guards changed shift and hurried away to their posts or to their own beds.

Once the castle was silent again Malik crept to the window and looked down. He heard no more coughing, but he saw the huddled shape of the gardener curled against the castle walls as if he expected the fortress to protect him.

Malik glanced over his shoulder. The library was quiet. Marîd and Abu Tariq were both asleep. He had rolled his blankets up in such a way that they could be easily mistaken for his own body.

He paused for a moment at the window before he finally made his decision. He climbed onto the sill and swung himself over the ledge. It was an easy climb. Syrian fortresses were built from stone to protect their defenders from siege weapons. Moroccans did not use siege weapons. The Kasbah had been built to withstand armed attackers only. The bricks of the fortress were of mud rather than stone. The walls needed replastering after every heavy rain, and so the builders had left holes in the ramparts. The spaces provided ventilation to dry the masonry as well as room for the scaffolding poles that would support the masons as they repaired the damaged plaster. Each hole was wide enough to hold a hand or a foot.

Malik used the scaffolding holes to descend into the dark, jasmine-scented gardens. A sleepy nightingale called from a tree as he passed. Another answered it. Nothing moved in the still night.

He paused at the base of the wall to regain his bearings. The sick servant's harsh breathing was easy to trace. Malik followed the sound to the man's crumpled body. The servant did not move or speak as Malik approached.

"_Salaam_," he whispered.

The man did not move. Malik greeted him in the Levantine Arabic of his childhood and then in Berber dialect before he realised that the man would never respond. He touched the gardener's shoulder and found that his body was limp and as cold as a stone.

Malik had hoped to assist the gardener back to his sleeping quarters before he was missed. Now he realised that that had never been a viable option. The servant was already wrapped in the shadowy wings of the Destroyer that came to all men.

Malik tried everything he could think of to rouse the servant from his stupor; but the man refused to move or even open his eyes. His breath rasped heavily. Fluid filled his chest and gurgled in his throat.

If Malik had been a doctor he would have tried to heal the man. But he was an assassin, and he had no healing skills.

He knelt down beside the man and pressed his hand over the gardener's mouth and nose. The man still did not rouse. He slipped easily into death in the space between one breath and another.

Malik waited for a hundred of his own breaths before he released his hand. He could not see the gardener's face in the dark, but he hoped that it was peaceful. He was glad that the man had died swiftly. He knew better than most that while the human body could be fragile, it could also be surprisingly resilient. All in all, he decided, he had seen far worse deaths.

When it was time to leave the body he hesitated, unsure whether or not to say the _salat-al-janazah_ prayer. Malik knew that the man had not been a Muslim at his death, but perhaps he had before al-Walid and his Apple had come to twist his mind. Most of the Berber nomads Malik had encountered during his travels had been pagan moon-worshippers who seasoned Islam liberally with their own faith, and he knew nothing of their funerary rites.

"Oh Allah," he said eventually, more for the sake of his own soul than the dead man's. "Receive this man. If he was a doer of good, then increase his good deeds. If he was a wrongdoer, then overlook his bad deeds." He bowed in homage and touched the soil at his feet. "Make his grave spacious, and fill it with light."

Malik wished that he had time to dig a grave. The gardener would have to make do with whatever his work-mates or nature gave him. It was more than most received.

He stood in reverent silence by the body for a moment before he turned to go. As he placed his right hand in the first scaffolding-hole he heard quiet voices.

The voices were familiar. They were also arrogant. Malik knew only two people in the whole castle who spoke so freely. Through the shadowy branches of the trees he saw a pair of dark shapes heading for a small postern-gate built into the wall of the main fortress.

Malik wondered what the pair was up to. He had seen al-Walid and his henchman al-Ghurab only rarely since entering the castle. The Master appeared only to preach his daily sermons before vanishing to his study in the keep. He emerged only to order books from Abu Tariq. Malik had not seen Ziri al-Ghurab at all. It did not surprise him. Al-Ghurab seemed to serve much the same purpose for al-Walid as Malik did for Altaïr.

Malik watched them pass from his hiding place in the bushes and realized that they would soon be out of sight if he did not follow quickly. He crept through the flower-scented undergrowth after them.

"It's a pity we can't get their new Master to join our Order like the old man did." al-Ghurab said.

Ziri al-Ghurab spat on the floor. "It is not. I shall enjoy watching the Assassin castle burn. It promises to be a bonfire the like of which the Holy Land has never seen."

"The first of many," the Master agreed. He unlatched the postern gate and gestured al-Ghurab through. Malik followed them as closely as he dared. He opened the door without a sound and crept into the shadows of the keep wall. The two men were not in sight, but he heard footsteps echoing from a tower door to his right. Instead of following, he wedged his hand and feet into the walls of the Kasbah and began to climb, praying as he did so that the horned moon would not provide enough light for the guards to notice his stealthy movements. Moonlight glittered from a deep reservoir at the centre of the keep.

"It will be a good fight," al-Ghurab said eagerly from inside the thin walls of the kasbah.

Malik could not hear the Master's reply, but al-Ghurab continued, "Though we must be cautious. Both Robert de Sable and Saladin have besieged Masyaf before. Both have failed."

Malik heard al-Walid laugh as he passed a narrow window. "They were both fools. We shall succeed. I have seen it."

Malik's right arm screamed. He paused for a second and balanced his weight on his feet as much as he could before resuming his breakneck climb.

Ziri al-Ghurab's voice drifted through the night sky above his head."The orb has shown you this?"

"It has, and much more besides." The Master's voice was eager. "It has promised me all I desire."

Al-Ghurab snorted. "You study the orb too much as it is. Swords, not artefacts, shall win this battle for us."

Al-Walid's reply was as quick and as sharp as the crack of a whip. "I do not study enough! We must understand the Eden fragments in order to conquer. Masyaf has two orbs after all, even though I'll wager they do not know how to use them."

Malik heard the sound of a key turning in a heavy iron lock. Instead of climbing further up he clambered carefully along the wall to a spot just below a narrow window. He guessed they had reached al-Walid's study.

"Let us hope that they do not" said al-Ghurab. "But the orbs can be tempting things. What will happen when this is all over? Will you send yours to Cyprus with the others?"

There was a very long silence. Malik's arm muscles burned as if a thousand ants were biting him. He shifted his grip as much as he could and tried to control his breathing. He had mastered one-handed climbing with persistence and no small level of skill, but his good right arm had not enough strength to bear his sustained weight for long.

"When this is all over I shall rule as I wish!" the Master snapped. Malik heard a rustle of clothing followed by a soft thud, as if something heavy had been placed on a desk top or onto floorboards.

Malik ignored the agony in his arm and hauled himself up a hand's width until he could see over the sill. The window was far too small to admit a man, but it was wide enough to peer through.

He saw the Eden fragment he had come to steal immediately.

Al-Walid and his lieutenant sat cross-legged on the floor. The room around them was sparsely furnished by the standards of the East. It was luxury incarnate by local standards. The Persian carpet on the floor was woven from silk rather than of wool. Wrought-iron lamps fragmented the candlelight into coloured shards of blue and gold and green. Malik shrank back into the shadows, but both men were far too intent upon what lay between them to notice him.

The Eden fragment appeared identical to the ones Malik and Altaïr had previously retrieved. It was a golden globe about the size of an orange, with patterns engraved into its surface so neatly that Malik doubted that they had been incised by any human craftsman. The mere sight of the orb made his stomach twist.

_I wish_, he thought heavily, _that I had been sent to steal anything except those accursed Eden fragments. Every ones draws Altaïr deeper into the mystery of their creation. Knowledge is a great thing, but there are some things that men were not meant to understand_.

He watched in silence as al-Walid tucked the Eden fragment back into his robe.

"At least leave the orb here," al-Ghurab said."It is not wise for you to bear it all the time."

_Yes_, Malik thought. _Leave it here, where I can find it._

The Master shook his head. "I shall decide what is wise and what is not," he said as he slipped the Eden fragment back into his robe. "Besides, it shall not be long before we take ship for the Holy Land. Not long at all."

The Master's lieutenant gave a snort and shook his head. "You cannot do without it," he said. "I told you that you use the orb too much."

"I wish that was the case," al-Walid replied. "The truth is that I don't use it enough. Every discovery we make aids the Templar cause. We move too slowly, my friend. We have always moved too slowly." He patted the bulge of the Eden fragment in the breast of his robe. "The orb lends me its strength."

Al-Ghurab watched his master cynically. "There are other sources of strength," he said. "I have always found a strong right arm and a good sword more useful than arcane skills."

Malik was surprised to find that he agreed with the Templar. He had never cared for the Eden fragments or the mysticism that Altaïr accepted with such readiness.

The Master smiled. Their conversation moved onto other things. Malik waited until he was nearly exhausted; but the Templars did not mention the Assassins or their own plans again. The moon had set by the time he crept back down the tower. Malik was grateful for the encompassing darkness. He let himself out through the postern gate and walked back through the trees to the dead man.

_I have found the Eden fragment_, he thought. _And if I must kill al-Walid to possess it, then so be it. I can think of few men who deserve death as richly as he does_.

He knew that the Master's assassination would be the easiest part of his plan. The loss of the Eden fragment would release the castle's servants from its control. Al-Ghurab would lose most of his soldiers, but not all. The Templars would follow swiftly. Malik's plan would have to buy them both enough time to escape undetected.

The Master keeps himself secluded. He shall not be missed for several hours if I am careful. He knew that it was not enough time. The Templars knew the countryside much better than Malik. It would be difficult to escape the valley intact without horses, and it would be impossible to escape unnoticed with them.

Malik shrugged and began to climb the wall. When he reached the library window he crouched on the sill and gazed out over the sleeping valley. He had not expected to find a solution in the landscape itself, but he did.

_The Master said that they shall soon take ship for the Holy Land_, he thought. _I do not have much time. Can it be true that they plan to besiege Masyaf? _

Despite his questions Malik knew in his heart that it was true. He thought vainly of the caste's trained homing pigeons. He had no way to take a message to Masyaf unless he travelled there himself.

_But I will_, he thought, _and soon. We shall repel this Templar invasion by any means left to us. We have done it before, after all._

_Still, I do not have much time. _

_To be continued..._


	7. Chapter 7

An Assembly of Bones

An Assassin's Creed fan fiction by xahra99

_Chapter Seven_.

_Masyaf. _

_Al Mualim was right, _Altaïr thought_. He who increases knowledge_, _increases sorrow_.

He leant on his desk with one hand splayed on his forehead and spun the Apple between gloved fingers. It gleamed in the sunlight.

_We are as children_, he thought. _Children grasping at every gleaming pebble without even glancing at the vastness of the mighty river beside which we sit._

_Maybe we are not meant to understand. _

_Maybe we _cannot_ understand. _

_And yet..._

He was interrupted by the sound of booted feet marching up the stairs to his library. It was Abbas. The Assassin had adopted the plain black robes of a _rafiq_ but had refused to relinquish his armour. Altaïr wondered, not for the first time, how on earth Abbas hoped to masquerade as a civilian once he received his posting. He looked up. "Yes?"

"Altaïr, you have a visitor." Abbas said.

Altaïr returned his gaze to the shining surface of the orb. "I am not expecting any visitors today," he said. "Besides, I am busy."

Abbas smirked. "She says she cannot wait," he said.

"Ah," Altaïr said. He put down the Eden fragment carefully. "It will be Nusaybah, then. Send her in."

The other Assassin nodded curtly and retreated. Altaïr tucked the orb away into a leather pouch. He was ready by the time Abbas returned with his guest.

"Nusaybah bint Khadijah al-Yerusalem, Altaïr-" He paused. "Master."

"Welcome back." Altaïr said. He looked up at Nusaybah, who smiled. "My lady, please be seated. Abbas, I'd like you to stay. What I have to say concerns you as well."

Abbas looked surprised. "Very well," he said. He clasped his hands behind his back and took up a position slightly to the right of Altaïr's desk. He ignored Nusaybah completely.

Nusaybah sank into a chair. She leaned back and threw one of her legs over the chair's low arm. "Did you speak to Sahl ben Salman?" she asked.

Altaïr ignored her. "How fares your husband's family in Safita?" he asked. "Did you travel well?"

"Very well," Nusaybah said with little ceremony and less manners. She twisted her veil between her fingers and smiled up at Altaïr. Small golden earrings glinted in the darkness of her hair. "Shall I assume that you have at least spoken to ben Salman? You have had more than enough time."

"It is always dangerous to assume anything," Altaïr said. He did not smile. Beside him, Abbas frowned.

Nusaybah laughed. "Then do I have one less competitor? Or is the merchant still alive?"

"That is not our way." Altaïr said. Abbas' frown deepened.

"It used to be," Nusaybah said. She glanced up at Abbas through her eyelashes, seeming to enjoy the other man's discomfort.

"Our Creed requires us to spare innocent life whenever possible," Altaïr said, "And ben Salman was extremely respectful."

"He's a good man," Nusaybah said. She sighed, threw the tail of her headscarf over her shoulder and crossed her legs. "But he is not innocent. None of us are."

"Indeed," Altair agreed.

"Now, I can tell that you want something of me. What is it?"

Abbas could no longer restrain his displeasure. "Keep a civil tongue in your head, woman." he snapped. "This man is the Master!"

Nusaybah seemed unperturbed by his outburst. A smile slid across her face as smoothly as honey."You have no idea what I can do with my tongue," she said. "This man might be your superior, but no man is _my_ master."

"Women must obey men!"

Nusaybah's eyes narrowed to kohl-lined slits. "They _must_ do nothing of the sort," she said.

Abbas looked as if he would explode. "It is written-"

"Who _by_?"

"Peace!" Altaïr interrupted. He did not expect Nusaybah to respect his authority but she subsided even faster than Abbas did, smoothing her hair and pulling her legs up into her lap. "Be silent, both of you. Nusaybah, I called you here to ask a favour," he said.

She frowned. "I recall you told me that favours were far too costly in the long run. I think that I have done enough. I told you of ben Salman's involvement, and that is all that I am prepared to do."

Altaïr continued as if she had not spoken."Ben Salman told me that the Templar who ordered the weapons is returning to Jerusalem very soon."

"That is no concern of mine."

"Listen to me," Altaïr's voice was as sharp as a keen blade. "The man's name is Shahryar. It is an alias, but that is not important. He is Moroccan, from the western lands. I plan to set a trap for him when he returns to Jerusalem. I must know the Templars' scheme."

Nusaybah's forehead furrowed. "I said no."

"Then why did you come back?" he asked. "It's a detour of some days between here and Safita."

Nusaybah watched Altaïr suspiciously; as if she was wondering what he was planning. "Because I'm a fool," she said finally. She rose from her chair."And now I'm leaving."

Altaïr looked at Abbas and raised his eyebrows. Abbas moved smoothly to block Nusaybah's path. He smirked at her obvious discomfort as she turned back to Altaïr."I told you that I'm leaving," she said indignantly. "I will not endanger myself or the lives of my household by allying myself with the Assassins."

Altaïr looked up at her. He did not have to look very far. Nusaybah was a small woman. She was not much taller than Altaïr even when the Assassin was seated. "That is a pity. I was under the impression that you had declared your alliance when you visited before. Certainly the Templars will see it no other way."

She bit her lip. "Why are you even telling me this?"

"I have no idea," Altaïr said. "I am certain that you already know. You chose a side when you decided to sell information to the Jerusalem Bureau. You chose one when you consorted with Malik al-Sayf, and you certainly chose one when you visited Masyaf only a few weeks ago. The lines have been drawn. There is no advantage in neutrality."

Nusaybah glared at Altaïr. She turned and glared up at Abbas for good measure and planted her hands firmly on her hips. "I dislike your attitude," she said to them both. "You are as bad as the Templars."

Abbas scowled.

Altaïr's expression did not change. "You're from Jerusalem," he said. "Do you remember Sibrand? The Templars and their allies were not kind to civilians."

Nusaybah flopped back down into her chair with bad grace. "Very well," she said."I shall help."

Altaïr motioned to Abbas, and the other Assassin returned to his original position. "I do not ask for one," he said. "I only ask for information. I shall not place you or any member of your household in danger. We shall have men stationed in the port of Acre and at all the gates of Jerusalem. The Templar will no doubt contact ben Salman and demand his weapons. I have told the merchant to stall him with some excuse. Assuming that works, he may very well contact the other weapons merchants. You will recognise the man when you see him?"

Nusaybah nodded. "I don't forget a face. Suppose I do see him. What should I do?"

"You shall refuse his request and send a message to the Jerusalem _rafiq_," Altaïr said.

She shrugged. "Obviously. But I lost contact with the Bureau after Malik left Jerusalem. Who is the new city _rafiq_?"

Altaïr jerked his head at Abbas. "He is," he said.

He wished that the Eden fragments could freeze moments in time like words upon a scroll so that he could preserve Abbas' expression. He had never seen the other Assassin lost for words.

It was Nusaybah's turn to smile as Abbas protested. "But-but I am no scholar! I am barely a _rafiq_! I-I cannot run a mapmaker's!"

"You will not have to," said Altaïr. "Choose yourself a trade-blacksmith, merchant, weapons instructor-I care not. The shop is a cover only. You will travel with Nusaybah to Jerusalem to take up your place in the Bureau. And you will lend her assistance should she need it."

Nusaybah's smile vanished. "My reputation will be ruined if I travel with such a man!" she protested, glaring at Abbas' scruffy beard and numerous weapons.

"Your reputation!" Abbas snorted.

"I am a respectable widow!"

"A widow, maybe. You are far from respectable-"

Altaïr cut them both off with a wave of his hand. Despite the interruption, he found that he was enjoying this. "Peace," he said again. "Abbas, you will travel in the guise of a servant or a guard. Join Nusaybah's caravan south of here, so you shall not be immediately connected with the Assassins. Nusaybah, you will introduce Abbas to your retinue. I am sure that you will have no difficulty in fabricating a story for him. He can be an old friend, or a relative of an old servant. The important thing is that you travel together to Jerusalem. Abbas will protect you, and you," he fixed Nusaybah with a glare, "will make it easy for him to do so."

"Do I have a choice?" she said bitterly.

"There is always a choice," Altaïr said. "But if the Templars discover your deception you will have a far higher chance of surviving under the direct protection of the Assassin's Bureau than you would have had otherwise. You would do well to remember this."

"I shall." Nusaybah's voice was far more demure than Altaïr had expected given her temper. She glanced sideways at Abbas and her lips curved into a smile. "I am sure that I shall enjoy working with your man. He seems...interesting."

Abbas glared at Nusaybah like she was a scorpion that he had unexpectedly found in his boot."I serve the Order in all things," he said in a voice that grated like ground glass. "This Shahryar-is he the ringleader?"

Altaïr shook his head. "He is only a messenger. But he has information which I-which we-need."

"It's to be torture, then?" Abbas inquired.

"Only if there is no other option. I have found that Templars love to gloat over their plans. You may turn this tendency to good use. Any man faced with torture will tell his captors what they want to hear. Information gained this way may be at best useless, and at worst outright dangerous. You know this."

"Maybe." Abbas said. "You have grown soft with the years, Altaïr. I knew you when you were not so merciful."

"I am as merciful as I need to be and no more." Altaïr said. His right hand sought out the Eden fragment in its bag. He recalled the vision of the burning city that he had seen so long ago in Timbuktu and knew that he would do anything it took to prevent the image from becoming reality.

Nusaybah snorted as she lounged back in her chair. "You waste time. The only information that you need to know is where the Templars are going to get their army from."

Abbas nodded. "For once we agree."

She smiled. "A rare occurrence, I am sure. The Templars are stockpiling weapons yet they have no men to wield them."

"This had crossed my mind," Altaïr said dryly.

"There's not enough Franj in the Holy Land to take this castle," Abbas said. "Their Outremer grows smaller every year. The Ayyubid sultans war amongst themselves; and mercenaries are unreliable. Besides, that's not the Templars' style. And the Templars are not all Franj."

"What about a revolt?" Nusaybah said. "How many of your men are loyal?"

Both Assassins gave her scornful looks. "Enough," Altaïr snapped.

Nusaybah was not intimidated. "Then we have just covered all options," she said. "You cannot have a siege without an army. Unless-" She paused; then said, "Could the Templars have learned secrets of war that would make force of arms unnecessary?"

"I do not think so." Altaïr drew his hand away from the Eden fragment. He felt the pull of it at his mind despite the short distance between himself and the artefact. "You can see why I need to question Shahryar."

"Shahryar," Nusaybah said. "You told me that he travelled from Morocco. Could the Templars import armies from the Maghreb?"

Altair shook his head. "It's too far. The Ayyubids, whatever their differences, would join forces against any foreign army."

"But they're not invading." Nusaybah said.

"That doesn't matter," Abbas said. "The Ayyubids are nervous enough as it is. Saladin's sons suspect everyone of treachery. They won't wait for explanations."

Altaïr hesitated. Ideas formed and reformed within his mind like pebbles in a rockslide. He could nearly sense the Templars' plan-

"Why Morocco?" Nusaybah asked. Beside her, Abbas turned. The same question was written in his eyes.

Altaïr sighed. "The Templars have a new stronghold in the mountains there," he said.

"How do you know all this?" Nusaybah asked. She had regained most if not all of her composure. Her gauzy violet veil floated in the breeze from the library's window and she twisted it around her wrists.

"I have spies," Altaïr told her. He picked up a quill pen and reached for a sheet of scraped hide.

"Well, that's obvious-"

"And I am a busy man. No doubt you have much to prepare." His gaze flicked between Nusaybah and Abbas. "Take only the basics, Abbas. I shall send supplies to you in Jerusalem, whatever profession you choose."

Abbas nodded. Nusaybah did not respond to the suggestion as Altaïr had expected. "So am I to return to Jerusalem based only on your promise of alliance?" she protested. "I suppose the Grand Master of the Assassins does not reward his informants?"

"Of course we do," Altaïr said. "I would expect nobody to serve me for free." He looked up at Abbas. "Abbas, have you any questions?"

The Assassin shook his head. "Only where I might meet this...lady's entourage?"

Nusaybah smiled sweetly. When she was sure that Abbas was looking she ran her tongue very slowly over her pink lips. It was enough to make even Altaïr, who had long since dedicated his life to the peculiar challenges that the Creed demanded of its adherents, recall days and women long gone. Abbas looked away quickly just before she said "You may meet me in Hamath. It is not far."

"Assemble your equipment and go," Altaïr said to Abbas, who was regarding Nusaybah with the sort of horrified amazement he would have given a snake in his clothes chest. He turned to Nusaybah as the Assassin bowed hurriedly and left. "You mentioned a reward."

"And I told you last time I visited that I had no need for coin," she said, watching Abbas' retreating back. "You Assassins! You are all the same. It took me all my time to force Malik to relax, and then you sent him off on some mission or other."

Altaïr wished once again for a way to capture moments in time. He would have loved to repeat Nusaybah's comment to Malik just so he could see his friend's reaction. "I have information to trade."

"How lovely," she said politely, although her voice sounded nothing of the sort.

"Malik's in Morocco," Altaïr told her.

Nusaybah hesitated. Her mouth was still slightly open, although she looked not in the least seductive. "Oh," she said eventually and with less than her usual flair. "Why should that interest me?"

"I don't know," Altaïr told her. "Why should it?

Nusaybah said nothing. Her hands clenched on the low arms of her chair. She tucked her feet up even further. "Thank you for the news," she said to the floor. "I-I had received word from one of my trading partners that he was near the kingdom of the Songhai."

"We –he-received your letter in Timbuktu," Altaïr said. "It mentioned a debt he owes. I would repay it on his behalf."

She shook her head and gave him the ghost of a smile. "It is not a debt I wish you to repay. It is a private matter. I will take it up with Malik himself once he returns." She raised her head as quickly and fluidly as a cat. "He _will_ return?"

"God willing," Altaïr said. He watched Nusaybah relax. "He travels to the Templar castle that I mentioned. He may prevent this siege before it starts. At least, that is what I hope. I am sorry that I cannot give you more than that. If you need a favour you have only to ask."

Nusaybah shook her head. Her earrings glittered and clashed. "I do not. Although I would dearly wish to know if sending me with that oaf you call an Assassin was a trick or a genuine attempt at assistance. I shall not," she added after a moment's contemplation, "invite him into my house. My neighbours are accustomed to gentleman callers, but I have a reputation to uphold."

"He shall be discreet," Altaïr assured her. "I thank you for your help."

She smiled. "I thank you. As for Malik, he must repay his debt in his own way, I have many female acquaintances. Should you be in need of any special favours, you have only to ask. I am certain they would find you...interesting."

Altaïr had to fight to keep his face inscrutable. "I am sure that will not be necessary," he said, and thought painfully of Adha.

Nusaybah raised an eyebrow. "I wouldn't be so sure," she said. "You look like you need to rest."

"All the same, I must decline."

Nusaybah snorted and rose from her chair. "Very well. Consider it, at least. I'll take my leave for now. Tell your henchman that I will not wait for him in Hamath. I hope that he is prompt."

"He will be," Altaïr assured her. "Go to Jerusalem. Abbas will protect you."

Nusaybah smirked. "Hm," she said, managing to insert several sentences' worth of scorn into a single sniff. "_Masa al'kheir_. My offer still stands. Think about it."

He nodded. "_Alla_'_ ysalmak_. Travel well."

After she had gone he retrieved the Eden fragment from its pouch, pulled on a pair of gloves and sat tracing the intricate patterns engraved on its surface. He closed his eyes and remembered his duel against Al Mualim two years ago. The wily old man had used his Eden fragment to control the inhabitants of Masyaf village. They had risen up and attacked Altaïr and his allies with a fury he had rarely seen before in fighting men.

He rolled the orb over in his palm.

_What if the Templars plan to control the villagers again_? He thought. _What if the civilians we fight to protect will be the Templars' conquering army?_

It was an unsettling idea.

_Unsettling enough_, Altair thought, _to be true_. But Al Mualim, clever though he was, had only been able to control the people of one small village; enough for a surprise attack, but not for a siege.

He felt as if he was treading the edge of a narrow precipice.

_One Eden fragment_, he thought.

_There is something that I am missing? _

_To be continued... _


	8. Chapter 8

An Assembly of Bones

An Assassin's Creed fan fiction by xahra99

_Chapter Eight_.

_Morocco. _

Malik woke the boy at midnight the next day. He walked over to the window and stood looking out over the mountains as Marîd yawned and rubbed his eyes. The moon had long since set, but it was not yet dawn. The hills were cloaked in mist. A chill wind, smelling of rain, blew in through the empty windows. Behind him, Abu Tariq snored behind the bookshelves.

Marîd blinked sleep from his eyes as he looked up uncertainly at Malik. When Malik did not answer him Marîd followed his gaze to the distant hills and studied them as if he thought Malik intended to test him on the view.

Malik glanced down into the gardens, but all was silent. "Recite the Creed," he ordered Marîd.

"Backwards?" Marîd asked slyly.

Malik shook his head. "Not at this hour. Forwards will do this time."

"Stay your blade from the flesh of an innocent," Marîd whispered, reciting the words like a mantra. "Hide in plain sight. Do not compromise the Brotherhood."

Malik leant his elbows on the windowsill. "Good," he said. "You have learned something, though I know not how. Now, recite the Paradox of the Assassins, as I have taught you. But not too loudly."

"We seek peace, but carry blades." Marîd's voice gained in confidence if not volume. He looked longingly over his shoulder towards his nest of blankets.

Malik sighed. "You are not ready," he said, "but you will have to do. It is time. Tomorrow night we will steal the Eden fragment from the Templars."

Marîd's eyes lit up with excitement. "Really? How?"

"You will see. The less you know the better," said Malik.

"You won't tell me?"

"Think of it as a leap of faith," Malik said. He watched as the boy cast a worried glance towards the ground far below. "Remember the Creed and you will survive."

"How will we escape?"

Malik pointed out towards the mountains. "We'll use the _qanats_," he said.

Marîd frowned. "What are those?"

Malik looked towards him, surprised. "Surely you had them in Fez? How else do you think al-Walid's garden grows so green? They dig tunnels to carry water from the high Atlas and sink wells into the tunnels."

"We call them foggara," Marîd said.

Malik stored the name in his mind for future use. He had always collected scraps of knowledge. "What you call them is not important. What I am about to tell you is. Listen. Do you remember the route we took to the aqueduct when we arrived?"

Marîd nodded eagerly.

"Go there and wait. If I don't follow in two days, head to Fez. Meet your family and take ship to Jerusalem. Take this with you." He pulled a small heavy pouch from his sash and handed it to Marîd. The boy loosened the thongs and glanced inside the pouch. He looked up at Malik in surprise.

"This is too much."

"It's not enough. You don't know how much travel costs."

Marîd closed the pouch and tucked it into his own sash. "But-"

Malik did not give him a chance to speak. "I said listen. Once you reach Jerusalem, go to the Bab Ariha gate. Find the widow of a weapons merchant called Rashid ibn Sinan. Mention my name, and she'll help you."

Marîd looked puzzled. "I've heard you speak of the Assassins' castle," he said. "Why don't I just go straight to it?"

"A good question. I'd send you straight to Masyaf, or to the Bureau of Assassins in Jerusalem, but both are hard to find. It may not be safe to ask too many questions. You must preserve the orb, no matter what the cost. But take care not to touch it with your bare skin, except in the direst need. You saw what happened in the desert. You will not be able to control it."

Marîd shook his head. He looked cowed. "But you'll be with me," he said. "Won't you?"

"I'll do my best," Malik said. He did not like lying."Now, repeat what I just told you."

Marîd did nothing of the sort. "Will this pay my debt?"

"It is already paid," Malik said. "If you wish, you can leave now." He knew that Marîd would not, but even the Assassins did not send boys of ten out to fight their battles unwillingly.

"Of course not. I'm an Assassin," Marîd said.

"You begin to be an Assassin," Malik corrected."But there are other ways to live. Now listen. If you are certain, we must be prepared. We have long days ahead of us, and there is much to be done."

Marîd's face was pale with excitement. "Do you think we'll succeed?"

Malik shrugged. "_Insha'Allah_. If God wills. Are you ready?"

Marîd nodded eagerly.

"Then let's begin," Malik said as he swung himself over the sill.

Marîd was somewhat less enthusiastic when they climbed back through the window several hours later. He rolled into his blankets straight away and was snoring seconds later. Malik stayed awake. He ran through plans in his mind as the castle woke around him. The harsh Assassin training had accustomed him to going without rest for long periods. Even if it had not, he did not think that he would have slept. He fought a thread of excitement as he sharpened his pen. He had not anticipated a mission this much since the raid on the Temple of Solomon with Kadar, when he had lost his arm and his brother had been killed.

_This time_, he thought, _I'll do things my way_.

He scratched a dagger into the soft surface of the writing-desk with the tip of his quill.

He would have liked to prepare more, but there was no time. He would have liked better odds, but there was no point in complaining. There could always be better odds.

_I have ensured that the Eden fragment will reach Masyaf_, _even if I do not._

In the corner, Marîd murmured in his sleep and rolled over. Malik looked at the tangle of dark hair poking up from the bundle of blankets. He hoped that the boy would survive. Malik had done everything in his power to ensure that the boy would live, but few knew better than he that plans did not always unfold the way you had expected.

There was a rattle at the door and Abu Tariq entered. His greying hair was ruffled from a night's sleep and his sash was stained. He stared owl-eyed at Malik, who pulled a book towards him and started to copy the text.

"You rose early."

"I could not sleep," Malik said. He considered commenting that the Master's recent sermon had inspired him to such a degree that he found rest impossible, but decided against it.

"What's wrong with the boy?" Abu Tariq asked.

"He's sick," Malik said briefly.

Abu Tariq blinked. "Oh. Well, roll him behind the bookshelves. He looks untidy."

Malik reached out with his foot from his sitting position and poked Marîd with the toe of his boot. The boy rolled to one side but did not wake.

Abu Tariq bustled around refilling the oil lamps. Malik swept the floor and fetched flat bread and tea for them both while the boy slept on. He took a moment to admire the pristine shelves before he resumed his work.

He would miss the books, if nothing else.

They worked on into the afternoon. Marîd awoke before the evening meal and Malik sent him down to the kitchens to fetch them bread and lentils. It seemed a very ordinary day.

He ate facing the window and watched the blue sky turn to beaten gold from the weight of the sun. Marîd left most of his meal. Malik wished that he could say something to reassure the boy, but he dared not. Abu Tariq was too close.

_It will be kinder in the long run_, he thought. _And besides, I do not remember any reassurances before my first mission and it did me no harm. _

When the y had finished their meal he sent Marîd back to the kitchen with the plates. The boy returned with three oranges stacked in his hands. He bit into the first fruit with relish and a spray of fragrant juice.

Malik pulled the text he was copying away. "Where did you get those?"

"From the garden," Marîd said indistinctly through a mouthful of sweet pulp."Want one?"

"No," Malik said.

Marîd held out an orange to Abu Tariq. The old librarian regarded the fruit with disdain. "Wipe your hands, boy," he said. "This is not a place for eating."

Malik tossed Marîd a rag from his writing-desk. The boy cleaned his hands messily enough that Malik had to make a pointed comment about the mutual incompatibility of sticky juice and leather book-bindings, and shoved the remaining oranges into the pockets of his robe. The air smelt strongly of sharp citrus-juice even after he had hidden the fruit. The smell hung in the air past sunset. It was still there, albeit as a faint shadow of its former self, when Abu Tariq yawned and said "May the Father of Understanding guide you both. I'm off to bed."

"Good night," Malik said without looking up from his work. Marîd, who had seemed nearly asleep at his own desk, raised his head like a hound. Malik shot him a hard glance and he slumped down again. Abu Tariq wandered off into his sleeping corner behind the bookshelves. After a while they heard him begin to snore.

"Is it time?" asked Marîd"

Malik shook his head. "Peace," he said quietly. "Wait a little longer. He may still wake."

"Then we'll kill him," Marîd said eagerly.

"And break the Creed?"

Marîd flushed sulkily. "It's been so long! I don't see why we should wait."

"Discretion, Marîd," Malik cautioned. "One hour of patience here may mean a whole night for you to escape undetected." He bent back to his work, copying the document slowly and taking pride in each elaborate swirl and curlicue of his pen. Marîd mimicked Malik's careful script with bad grace. His calligraphy was still untidy, but it had improved.

_If nothing else, this interlude has enhanced the boy's script beyond anything I could have taught him, _thought Malik.

Malik waited an extra few minutes just to teach Marîd not to be so impatient. Then he tidied away his writing-desk as he did every night and selected a thick book from a nearby shelf. Marîd cleaned his own desk with considerable more haste. When the library was tidy once more Malik rolled up their sleeping blankets behind the shelves as he did each night. With luck Abu Tariq would not think to check their sleeping rolls until it was too late.

They slipped out of the library and closed the door quietly behind them. Malik passed the book he had stolen to Marîd before he turned the key in the lock and tucked it into his sash. He hoped that they would be long gone once the librarian awoke, but t did not do to take chances.

Malik led the way as they walked through the kasbah's narrow dusty corridors. The changing of the guard was underway and Malik found it easy to blend into the crowd. The soldiers did not wear uniforms but they were all tall men with sharp swords and hard faces and Malik found them easy to spot. He kept them both as far from the soldiers as he could, but the guards took no notice of a pair of lowly servants.

Marîd clutched the book Malik had stolen from the library with white-knuckled hands as they mounted the stairs that lead to the Master's private study. The sounds of the changing of the guard receded as they headed up the stairs. Soon it was so quiet that Malik heard Marîd's rapid, shaky breathing behind him as he walked. He glanced backwards at the boy and noticed that Marîd's face was pale in the dim smoky light of the stairwell torches.

"Have courage," he said. "We shall not fail."

Marîd smiled wanly in reply. He clutched the book to his chest as if it was armour. All of his bravado seemed to have vanished in the short journey between the library and the keep. Malik hoped that the boy would not break. He was fairly sure that Marîd would not, but it was difficult to predict how a person would react to real action until it happened. Especially if they were as young as Marîd was.

They reached the top of the stairs in full view of the guard who stood on duty outside al-Walid's study. The soldier drew himself up as he caught sight of the Assassins. He wore a sword on his belt and a crossbow slung across his back on a bandolier.

Malik did not even pause. He adopted a subservient posture as they drew closer; letting his shoulders slump. He studied the scuffed toes of his boots and avoided the guard's eyes. The soldier's weapons clanked as he straightened up. Malik swung his right arm behind his back.

"Halt!" the guard snapped. "Who seeks an audience with the Master?"

Malik looked up and caught the man's eyes. He flicked his wrist. The dagger concealed up his sleeve dropped down into his hand, hidden from the guard's view. "We have brought the Master the book he ordered from the library."

Marîd stepped out from behind Malik on cue. His hands shook as he held out the heavy text for the soldier to examine. As the guard bent towards him to examine the book he gulped and dropped it to the ground. The manuscript hit the mud floor with a thud and a puff of dust. The guard automatically looked down.

Malik swung his arm from behind his back and struck with one smooth motion. The tip of his blade entered under the guard's jaw and sliced vertically upwards as the man slumped to the floor. It took Malik less than a second to bury the knife up to the hilt in the guard's skull. The blade slid in as easily as slicing cheese. Malik felt a brief moment of resistance as the dagger encountered the thin bones at the back of the skull. He left go of the blade and caught the Templar before he hit the floor. Marîd clapped both of his hands over the guard's mouth to stifle any sound that he made as soon as he could reach, but the only noise that Malik heard was the soft puff of escaping breath.

Malik waited a moment before he pulled out the knife. The blade slid free reluctantly with the grinding sound of steel grating on thin bone and a gush of dark blood. Malik wiped the blade clean on the dead guard's tunic and stood up. Marîd released his death-grip on the guard's mouth and wiped bloody hands on his robe. He fumbled shakily for the book and watched Malik with wide eyes.

Malik nodded reassuringly. He slipped the knife back into his sleeve.

The whole episode had taken only a few seconds.

Malik listened for movement within the study, but he heard no sign that anybody inside the room had noticed anything suspicious. He nodded again to Marîd and knocked on the study door.

"Enter," the Master called from inside.

Malik glanced back at Marîd. When the boy had clasped the book securely to his chest he slid the door open a small crack and quickly stepped into the opening. His body hid the bulk of the guard's corpse from the Master's eyes. Marîd followed behind him and closed the door as Malik bowed deeply.

The Master sat cross-legged on the carpet in the centre of the room, practising calligraphy on a scroll. He looked up as they approached. "What is it?" His voice was tinged with irritation and he looked none too pleased at being interrupted.

"My lord," Malik said, "we have brought you a gift."

The Master lowered his brush. "A gift? Who from?"

Malik flexed his right hand and the knife dropped down into his palm. "I have a gift from the Assassins," he said.

The Master's face jerked up, eyes wide in surprise. He dropped the book. Malik watched it fall as if in slow motion, senses sharpened by adrenaline. Before the book had hit the ground he leaned forwards, reversed the blade and struck Al-Walid across the face with the hilt of his knife. It was a good blow, with all the weight of Malik's frustration at his weeks of inactivity behind it.

The book hit the floor and bounced, scattering pages across the carpet at the Master's feet.

The Master instinctively brought his left arm up to cover his face. His right hand dug in the pocket of his robe. Malik did not wait for him to grasp his Eden fragment. He flipped the knife in his hand and sank it deeply into Al-Walid's left armpit.

Blood sprayed across the carpet as the Templar Master toppled backwards. Marîd stood with his mouth open. He held the book that he had used to distract the guard to his chest like a shield.

Malik stood over the corpse, breathing hard. He heard a gasp from the carpet as he shook out his knuckles. As he looked down at the Master's dead body he saw a bubble of blood form on the corpse's lips.

_Dying_, he thought, but not yet _dead_. It was a pity. There was a certain pleasure in clean kills.

Al-Walid's voice was weak and only just audible. "_Whyyyy_?" he asked.

Malik knelt down beside him just in time to hear the Templar repeat his question. "Why...have you done this?"

"You have to ask?" Malik said. He reached into the left side of the Master's robe and pulled out the Eden fragment, wrapped in an embroidered pouch. "You enslave people and call it freedom." He upended the bag and let the orb fall on the carpet, careful not to touch it. Lamplight gleamed on its perfect surface. "You care nothing for their lives."

Al-Walid's breath wheezed. Each word was weaker than the last. "You...you jackals of Masyaf. You are liars and... hypocrites... You speak of the sanctity of these...worthless peasants'...lives...yet you take life as if it means nothing."

"Save your breath," Malik told him.

"You will...regret...this..."

"Be silent." Malik judged from the waxy pallor of the man's face that he had only seconds of life remaining to him. "It will be easier. You have not long left."

The Master ignored him. "Your castle will be...overthrown. It will not be long now... Where will you Assassins go...when you have no lair left to run to? We shall kill... you all. We shall salt the fields and kill every last one..." He turned his head to stare at Marîd. Blood sprayed from his lips and his eyes rolled back into his head, but he held onto consciousness with a visible effort. "Young and old." He gave a laugh which turned into a hacking cough. "We will kill you all..."

Malik reached down and yanked out his knife.

The Master gurgled. His head jerked back. His hands scrabbled at the carpet. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth as his eyes stared sightlessly up at the ceiling.

Marîd stared. "He's dead."

Malik replaced the knife in his sash. He reached out and closed the dead man's eyes. "That was well done," he said to Marîd.

The boy looked at the corpse. "But he was unarmed!"

"Would you have waited for him to arm himself?" said Malik. "That is how you die. Besides, he was not unarmed. He had the Eden fragment and that is worth more than any weapon."

Marîd looked doubtfully at the gleaming golden orb. "I-I have not-"

"You have not seen all it can do and with God's fortune you never will," Malik said curtly. "Worry about your own life. We have work to do, and little time."

Together they dragged the dead body of the guard inside and laid it out on the carpet beside the Master's corpse. Malik unfastened the soldier's bandolier and passed the crossbow to Marîd. "Remember what I said," he told the boy.

Marîd nodded. He tightened the bandolier to its smallest setting and slung the crossbow across his back. When it was fastened to his satisfaction he pulled one of the oranges that he had stolen from the gardens from his tunic and handed it to Malik.

Malik looked at the fruit for a moment before he handed it back. "Why don't you peel it?" he suggested.

Marîd looked apologetic. He pulled the peel from the orange and handed it to Malik, who wrapped it around the Eden fragment. He passed the camouflaged artefact back to the boy and dropped the fruit into the embroidered pouch that had formerly held the Eden fragment.

"Remember what I told you," Malik said. "It has gone well so far. I shall meet you at the aqueduct in two days time. Now go."

Marîd nodded. He checked the fit of the crossbow over his shoulders and climbed onto the sill of the narrow window. It was just wide enough to admit his body. He slipped from the sill without a word.

Malik finished his preparations and settled down to wait.

The scent of citrus had completely faded by the time he heard footsteps outside. The footsteps paused as they reached the top of the stairs and registered the absence of the guard, and then speeded up. The door slammed open with such force that it ricocheted from the mud-brick wall in a cloud of dust.

Ziri al-Ghurab stood in the doorway with his mouth open and his hand on the hilt of his sword.

Malik looked up from his position beside the corpses. He had laid the dead men out together on the carpet, treating both bodies the same. The Master's eyes were closed and his hands clasped neatly together on his chest. It was Malik's own way of refuting the dying man's last words. He would accord al-Walid's corpse as much respect as he had granted the guard who had died in the service of the Templars or the peasant who had died coughing up his lungs in the gardens of the fortress. The bloody dagger gleamed in his sash and he held the embroidered bag that had contained the Master's Eden fragment in his right hand.

Al-Ghurab's eyes flicked to the bag before returning to his master's corpse. "You!" he hissed. "You murdered him!" He drew his sword with a hiss of steel.

Malik backed towards the window. The first light of the rising sun gleamed on the water of the keep's reservoir far below him. "Yes," he said, as the first dawn rays painted the wall behind him crimson.

"Who-"

"My name is Malik al-Sayf," Malik said. "I am an Assassin. And I have the Eden fragment."

Al-Ghurab's hand went to the pocket of his robe, as if he searched for something that was not there. "You will give it to me," he said.

Malik shook his head. "No." he said. Amazingly he felt the pressure of the Templars' compulsion, like fingernails scratching at the corners of his mind. The compulsion was far weaker than before, and Malik shrugged it off easily. He wondered if al-Ghurab could somehow tap into the last vestiges of his master's dying power.

"You will-"

"No," Malik said. "I won't." He picked up the bag and tossed it through the window and into the reservoir below.

Al-Ghurab froze in horror for a moment before he rushed forwards, towards the orb. He was far too late to save it. Malik dodged him easily. He heard the splash in the moat far below as he slammed the study door behind him and turned the key he had taken from al-Walid's corpse in the lock. A second later he heard the thud of a body impacting with the door and then a howl.

"Men! To arms! The Assassins have murdered our Master!"

Malik did not wait for more. He ran for his life.

_To be continued..._


	9. Chapter 9

An Assembly of Bones

An Assassin's Creed fan fiction by xahra99

_Chapter Nine_.

_Jerusalem. _

Nusaybah leaned back against the wall of her bathhouse. The glazed tiles were hard and refreshingly cool against her shoulder blades. She wiped sweat from her arm and stared up at the star-shaped skylights that pierced the ceiling of the small room. Drops of water pearled on her skin. The air smelt of incense and the cedar wood her servants had used to light the fires.

Nusaybah had bathed every day since returning from Masyaf. She considered it time well spent. The journey had been dreadful. The appalling Assassin lieutenant had paid her no attention for the entire journey. Nusaybah, who was unused to men paying her no attention, could not decide if he had ignored her simply because he had thought her beneath notice or because he had been trying to be discreet. She suspected the former.

She ran a hand critically down her leg.

_It's been three days_, she thought, and _I am still scrubbing the dust of the road from my skin_.

Nusaybah had heard nothing from either the Templars or the Assassins since entering the city during that time, and she was grateful. She certainly enjoyed being involved in politics, but there were politics that one should be involved in and politics that one shouldn't.

_And a brawl between the Assassins and the Templars is definitely the sort of politics that one should not be involved in_, she thought as she traced her toes across the glazed blue floor. _Even if it _is _good for business._

She shrugged off her unease like last year's fashions and clapped her hands. A few moments later her handmaiden Munya opened the door of the hammam. Steam billowed from the room as Munya slipped in through the door. Nusaybah lowered herself face down on the stone slab set into the bathhouse floor. She winced as the cool marble touched her skin but forgot it all in an instant as Munya began to massage her back. "Careful!" she said sharply as Munya's hand touched a particularly tender spot. The servant instantly changed her movements to a more gentle massage. Nusaybah sighed and went limp with pleasure.

After the massage was over she got up and went into the cold room. The girl poured cool water over Nusaybah's shoulders and helped her into a chemise and loose trousers of smoke-blue silk. She anointed her mistress' wrists and the base of her throat with attar of roses, stained her fingers with henna and lined her eyes with kohl. Last of all she brushed Nusaybah's long black hair last of all. Once her mistress's hair was a waterfall of black silk Munya braided it into two long plaits and pinned them on the crown of Nusaybah's head with pins of jewelled silver. She knotted a patterned silk kerchief around Nusaybah's forehead.

Nusaybah checked her servant's work with a hand-mirror. She adjusted the headscarf a touch before she nodded in satisfaction.

"You may go," she told Munya.

Munya touched her palms together and departed.

Nusaybah curled up on the window seat with a glass of almond milk in her hands and viewed the street through the intricate patterns of her _mashrabiya_ screen.

The road below was busy. Dust drifted up and stained the robes of the crowds as they pushed their way along Jerusalem's narrow streets. Nusaybah sipped her milk and gazed at the hubbub below with the detached gaze of an observer. When she had had her fill of eavesdropping she finished her drink and began to pluck her eyebrows with a pair of bronze tweezers.

She was half way through the second eyebrow when she heard a commotion from the other side of her house. Like most of the houses in the district, Nusaybah's house was arranged around a central courtyard. She had not expected to hear a clamour from that direction. The sound made her hand slip and she pinched her skin rather than the stray eyebrow hair that she aimed for.

Nusaybah cursed. She dropped the tweezers on the floor and rubbed at her face. Wiping a tear from the corner of her eye, she got up from her seat, intending to discover the cause of the commotion and punish whichever of her servants was responsible.

She had got no further than half way across the carpet when a man burst through the carved wooden door. He had a short and ugly knife in one hand and a fistful of her maid's Munya's hair in the other. The girl tumbled to her knees on the floor and gasped out apologies in between sobs.

The intruder paid no attention. He scowled at Nusaybah. "This is the whore?" he asked and yanked at Munya's hair.

Munya screamed and fell over. The man let go of her hair contemptuously. Munya moaned and looked at Nusaybah beseechingly.

"Go," Nusaybah said without taking her eyes from the intruder.

Munya scrambled to feet and fled.

Nusaybah drew herself up to her full height. "Who are you?" she spat. "And what are you doing in my house? I demand that you remove yourself this instant. Have you no respect?"

The intruder gave a coarse laugh. "Not for whores," he said. He took a step forwards into the room, towards Nusaybah, and closed the door behind him. The sound of Munya's footsteps running down the staircase outside came to an abrupt halt.

"Then who-"

"You can call me Shahryar," he said.

Nusaybah was familiar with the Thousand and One Nights. She had always imagined the famous king Shahryar as a man of wealth and taste. This man looked as if he had neither. His cold dark eyes looked as hard as cabochon gems. A cheap brass hoop pierced his right ear. A long scar twisted the left side of his face into a permanent sneer."You are the Templar," she said. Her throat was suddenly dry.

Shahryar nodded. "And you are the Assassins' whore."

A spark of fear pierced Nusaybah's fury like a lightning bolt slicing storm clouds. She ignored it; refusing to be intimidated in her own home. "I wish that men would think of a more original insult," she said. "Besides, I gave up working many years ago."

He sniffed. "Whores do not change. A dog's tail does not straighten out."

"How did you find me?" Nusaybah asked. She measured the distance between the man and the door as she spoke and realized quickly that there was no way that she could reach the handle before he did. She was a small woman. Shahryar was a large man; twice Nusaybah's size. He would block the door long before she reached it.

Shahryar smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. "The Jew told me."

"Jew?" _Ben Salman_, she realized. "He-"

"He's dead." The Templar waved the knife in the air. There was no trace of blood on the blade. The sight reassured Nusaybah for a moment before she realized that only a maniac would walk the streets of Jerusalem with a bloody knife in their hand. "He did not die well," the Templar said. "And neither will you," he added as an afterthought.

Nusaybah crossed her arms to banish her rising panic. Ben Salman had been a good man. "What do you want?"

"Your life," he said simply. "You made a mistake, woman." She did not like the way he spat the word, as if being a woman was something to be ashamed of. "You chose the wrong side."

"My guards will arrive soon," Nusaybah pointed out, hoping against hope that the Assassins would somehow arrive sooner.

The Templar smiled, revealing yellow teeth. "Not soon enough." The pinprick mosaic of light that shone through the _mashrabiya_ gleamed on the blade of his knife. He turned from her and dragged a heavy inlaid writing-desk across the doorway with frightening ease. Nusaybah knew that she could never have moved the bureau alone. She took a step back, towards the window. The silk carpet was soft on her bare feet.

Shahryar turned back to her. "Where were we?" he asked, as if this was a business meeting rather than a murder.

Nusaybah dropped to her knees with calculated grace. The movement dragged her veil from her head and revealed one cinnamon-coloured shoulder through the sheer fabric of her chemise. She looked up at him through lashes encrusted with tears. "Do it, then," she said, and tilted her head back. A long strand of dark hair rolled down her cheek and nestled in the space between her breasts. She flushed and scooped the stray strand of hair back into her veil with a jingle of bracelets. As she raised her arm she let her sleeve fall back so that he got a good glimpse of the soft, scented skin on the inside of her wrist. Then she looked up at him.

Shahryar took a step towards her. Nusaybah nearly smiled when she caught sight of the expression on his face.

"Stay where you are," he said.

Nusaybah shifted slightly despite his order. Her thin smoke-blue chemise tightened against the outline of her body. She heard him swallow as she held herself poised; waiting for him to react.

She did not have to wait long.

Shahryar coughed and walked towards her across the carpet. His boots left dirty footprints on the rugs underfoot. Nusaybah tilted her head up further to gaze at him. When she was sure that she had his full attention she lowered her gaze demurely.

By the time she looked up again his knife was already descending towards her. Nusaybah took a single sharp, quick breath as the blade sliced across her cheekbone.

"Better," he said.

She felt blood run down her face and fought down a rising tide of terror as Shahryar knelt down opposite her. He took hold of her face in one of his big hands and rotated it upwards. He used the back of the hand that held the knife to smear sticky blood across her cheeks like rouge.

"You must help me," she said. Desperation tinged her words. "I'll do anything you ask. Anything."

He smiled. "You will."

Nusaybah saw a look in his eyes that she had seen before. Not many times, thank the Compassionate One-she had been a favoured daughter of the house in her younger days-but she had seen the other girls return from assignations with bruises and tears on their faces. She had known that there were men who found pleasure in such things, but she had hoped never to encounter such men herself.

Nusaybah took a long, shuddering breath.

Shahryar leant forwards and hit her hard and accurately across the face. "Witch," he said. "Did you think that I could be so easily tempted?"

Nusaybah raised her trembling hand to her lip. She tasted coppery blood in her mouth. Fear and pain crystallised to pure hatred as she watched him smile. "I hoped so," she said through thick lips.

The Templar smiled and lowered his knife. He reached out to touch Nusaybah's swollen lip. His smile widened as she took a shaky, painful breath. "I'll do you a favour," he said. "One that's more than you deserve. I'll make it quick."

Nusaybah glared at him. He struck her again, with more force but less accuracy. His open palm glanced off the crown of her head. Nusaybah slipped her hand up to her coiled and pinned hair to rub the bruise that would surely come. Her fingers touched the sharp tip of her hair ornaments.

Moving slowly as poured honey, she selected a long ivory pin and slid it free from her hair. Half her tresses fell from their confinement. Black hair slipped over Nusaybah's shoulders like oiled silk, concealing her right hand.

She rotated the hairpin in her palm and struck like a snake.

To Nusaybah's dismay, Shahryar raised his head slightly just before the blow fell. The pin glanced from the bony orbit of his eye with a jolt before sliding into the socket as smoothly as a knife into butter. The Templar jerked his head back as Nusaybah lurched forwards on her knees towards him. She dug the hairpin in until she felt bone grate against its tip and jerked it savagely to the side before she tried to pull it out. It would not come. Blood dripped down the Templar's face and soaked the carpet.

Shahryar dropped his knife and clutched at his face. Gore welled between his fingers. He staggered backwards and the hairpin slid from Nusaybah's grasp. She looked down and saw Shahryar's knife gleaming against the crimson carpet.

She did not even think. Her hand closed on the leather-wrapped hilt and she brought the blade up and around in a savage over-arm sweep that ended in the Templar's chest. The knife sank in a little way before it glanced off something hard. Nusaybah rotated the blade and tried again. This time the knife buried itself to the hilt in the Templar's stomach. He wheezed as if he had been punched and crumpled to his knees with his left hand clapped over the ruins of his eye socket and his right hand covering his guts. The ivory hilt of Nusaybah's hairpin jutted incongruously from between his spread fingers. He crawled away from Nusaybah towards the door, spreading blood and filth across the carpet. It disgusted her.

"Why won't you die?" she muttered, and followed him. This time the knife buried itself in his back a finger's width down from his ribs. He screamed and fell face-down on the floor, chest heaving. When he did not die immediately, she stabbed him again, and this time he jerked and lay still.

Nusaybah dropped the knife. She knelt on the carpet and emptied her stomach, retching until she had brought up every drop of the sweet almond milk.

There was a knock at the door. The handle moved and the door opened a crack.

She heard Munya's voice. "My lady! Are you all right?"

Nusaybah mutely shook her head. She stood shaking next to the body and said nothing as the door heaved. The desk slid back across the carpet until the space behind it was wide enough to admit a man. The remainder of Nusaybah's hair slid free from its pins and slithered down across her shoulders. Blood covered the patterns hennaed on her hands. Her cheek stung and dripped blood onto the smoky blue silk of her chemise.

She had expected Munya to enter. Instead the Assassin lieutenant Abbas squeezed through the narrow gap between the desk and the door. He stared at the dead body on the floor and then he stared at Nusaybah until she automatically drew the remnants of her veil across her face. She had expected to see disdain upon his dark face, but instead she saw respect.

The Assassin knelt down and laid blunt fingers to Shahryar's throat."Dead," he said after a moment.

"He wouldn't die," Nusaybah whispered hoarsely.

The door gaped a little wider as Munya wedged herself into the narrow gap. She paused before she was more than half way through to stare at the dead man and her mistress, but collected herself quickly enough. She swept her own cloak from her shoulders and offered it to her mistress. Nusaybah took the cloak and wrapped it tightly around her ruined clothing. She felt much better once she was decently attired.

"You were sent to protect me," she said accusingly to Abbas.

The Assassin looked embarrassed. "We tracked the Templar from ben Salman's," he said. "I did not realize-"

"He nearly killed me!" she snapped.

Abbas looked even more embarrassed. "But you killed him," he said. He sounded as if he was trying to be kind, but was unsure how exactly to proceed. "You can't stay here. You'll have to leave. I'll take you to Masyaf myself."

"My household-" Nusaybah protested.

"They must come too," said Abbas."I will not be responsible for your safety here. Besides, al-Sayf will no doubt have my hide if I let harm come to you."

"I thought Masyaf would soon be under siege?"

He shook his head. "You'll still be safer there than you will in Jerusalem."

"But my business-" she protested.

"Close it," he said.

Nusaybah stared at him as if the very idea was obscene, "I can't," she said. "It's my livelihood."

Abbas shrugged. "The Assassins will support you."

"In the manner to which I am accustomed?" She spread out an arm, indicating the lush furnishings.

Abbas gave a short laugh. "I doubt it. Our lives are much more simple. But it's your business or your life. There will be more Templars. How many, I don't know." He jabbed his thumb towards the corpse. "He might have told us, had you not robbed him of his life."

"I had no choice!" Nusaybah snapped.

Abbas held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "Peace," he said. "I understand."

Nusaybah shook her head. "No. You do _not_. I have never killed a man."The air smelt of copper and blood. She trembled at the heavy scent of it. Her hands, she noticed, had begun to shake.

Abbas looked at her incredulously. "You sell weapons, don't you?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, "but I don't wield them. There's a difference."

Abbas started to speak, but Munya interrupted him. "That's quite enough for now," she said. "Anyone can see that my lady is not well. I'll take her for a bath." Munya cast a disdainful glance around at the mess and an even more disdainful one at Abbas. "And you can clean up." She wrapped an arm around Nusaybah's shoulders. Nusaybah would usually have refused all attempts at comfort, but she found the reassurance satisfying. She leaned into the warm encompassing circle of Munya's embrace.

"Come on, my lady," the servant said to her. "A nice bath will put things right." She turned to Abbas. "We'll leave you here."

"I just had a bath," she protested.

"Take another one," Munya said firmly. "We'll leave you-" she cast a doubtful glance at Abbas "-you gentlemen to your work."

Abbas nodded. He pushed the door open wider and beckoned to someone standing behind it. Two other men wearing white Assassin's robes and white veils over their noses and mouths entered. Their footsteps were unnaturally quiet on the carpet. They picked up Shahryar's corpse as if it weighed nothing and carried it past Nusaybah. She heard their footsteps going down the stairs into the courtyard in the centre of the house.

"Where are you taking him?" she asked.

Abbas shook his head. "It's none of your business to know."

"I killed him," she said. "I think I have a right."

He looked at her carefully, as if weighing something that she could not quite see in her mind. "The river," he said finally."His own mother won't recognise him after a day spent floating."

Munya gasped. Nusaybah shrugged; glad that the man she had killed would be denied his traditional funeral rites. She stepped aside as the two white-robed Assassins carried the corpse out the door and down the stairs.

"The bath-" Munya murmured.

"Can wait," Nusaybah said firmly. She turned to Abbas. "How long do I have to prepare?"

"Leave as soon as you can," he said. "We'll escort you to Masyaf."

Nusaybah looked around the room. She mentally catalogued her possessions. She would need ready money, and soon. Lists flashed through her mind: that would have to remain, that sold, this packed. "Give me two days."

Abbas shrugged. "It's your decision. Sooner would be better. "

"One day, then." Nusaybah said firmly. "You and your men may stay here while I make preparations. I find that I have need of you."

Abbas hawked and spat on the carpet. Nusaybah would have rebuked him if the rug had not been ruined and stained with gore. "We're not here to help you pack," he said.

"I intend nothing of the sort." she told him. "I have servants."

He raised an eyebrow. "Really? Then what do you need us for?"

Nusaybah took a deep breath."I want you to teach me how to kill a man," she said. "This one took far too long. He would not die. It was...distressing." She rubbed at the carpet with the toe of one slipper. "And messy."

"Women don't fight," Abbas said firmly.

"Why not?"

"Because women have men to fight for them."

"Then where were you when the Templars burst into my room?" she asked. Abbas did not say a word, but she sensed his unease. "I don't ask you to make me into an expert. I just want you to teach me some basic moves."

He looked at her, his expression changing from sceptical to calculation. "You _are_ serious," he said.

"Of course," she replied.

He shook his head. "I can't teach you to fight." He held up a hand as she started to protest. "But I can teach you to kill. There's a difference. And you won't like it."

"I don't expect to," Nusaybah said.

Abbas nodded. "Very well," he said, glancing at Nusaybah's blood-streaked clothes and face. "Best have a bath first. Get cleaned up. There will be more than enough time to kill once we reach Masyaf."

Nusaybah brushed a blood-streaked strand of hair from her face. "There better be," she said. "If the Templars treat me as an Assassin then I shall behave like one. Your Creed does not forbid it?"

He gave a harsh laugh, as if something she had said had amused him. "If nothing is true," he said, "then everything is permitted. Even teaching women to kill."

Nusaybah smiled like a snake. "Good," she said. "That's very good."

_To be continued... _


	10. Chapter 10

An Assembly of Bones

An Assassin's Creed fan fiction by xahra99

_Chapter Ten_.

_Morocco. _

Malik stopped before he had gone more than a few paces. The thin mud-and-rushes floor gave invitingly under the soles of his boots, but he resisted the temptation to flee. The Master's study door was thick and the room was isolated from the rest of the fortress. It would be a while before anybody heard al-Ghurab's cries, and longer for the Templar to break down the door.

He walked calmly down the corridor and negotiated the steep spiral staircase without seeing a single soldier. There were a pair of men on guard in the courtyard, but he walked past them without looking. The guards returned the favour.

As he walked, Malik strained his hearing for the hue and cry that would signal pursuit. He heard nothing except the sound of his own heart thumping in his chest. He walked through the kasbah courtyard into the small garden beside the servants' quarters. The rising sun painted the hills with amber light and cast spiky shadows beneath the garden's date palms. Dew glistened on the grass. Malik kept to the paths, careful to tread lightly enough that his footsteps could not be tracked. He inhaled jasmine-scented air and wondered how Marîd was coping. He was fairly confident that the boy would be able to retrace their steps to the old aqueduct. After that-well, the mission had been a gamble from the start.

_It is a shame_, he thought, _that Altaïr had to return to Masyaf. He's evaded guards from Agadez to Acre. The Eden fragment would have been far safer in his hands_. _And it is an even greater shame that Altaïr's missing finger would betray him to the Templars in a moment._ _No. Altaïr is far better off in Masyaf._

He pulled his hood over his face and followed the path through the garden to the shed where the gardeners kept their tools. The hour was early, but the kasbah's farmers had awakened long before. A small group of ragged men hung around the entrance to the small building. They did not look at Malik as he pushed past them and picked up a spade. Nobody bothered to ask what use such an implement would be to a one-armed man.

_There are advantages_, Malik thought, _to mind control_.

He followed the tattered band as they headed through the gardens to their work in the fields. The spade felt awkward in his hand. The Assassins were not farmers, and Malik's peasant childhood had been a long time ago. The workmen paid him no attention. They tramped onwards towards the gate which Malik and Marîd had used to enter the stronghold several weeks before.

He had nearly reached the gate when everything changed. There was no sound; no sign and no warning. The farmers stopped in their tracks. Malik looked around, wondering what the matter was. The wind moaned in the branches of the apple trees. Nobody moved.

He stepped aside, intending to push his way through the silent group and out of the gate. A second later the blow that had been aimed at his head hit his left shoulder. It was a heavy strike, if poorly aimed. Malik staggered. He would have fallen if it had not been for the sudden press of bodies around him.

He spun, clutching his shoulder with his good right hand, and saw the farmer behind him raising his hoe for a blow that would have smashed his skull like a melon if he had not jumped backwards. Someone behind him punched him in the small of his back. He fell to his knees, groping for the knife in his sash. Calloused hands tore at his clothes.

_This should not be happening_, he thought.

He had not expected that the effects of the stolen Eden fragment would last so long. All his experiences with the artefacts had indicated the contrary. The effects of Al Mualim's Apple had lasted only as long as Al Mualim had held the orb.

_Maybe it is not the Apple, _he thought.

But as he looked around at the faces of the gardeners he knew that it could be nothing else. The men's faces were blank; their eyes wide; the pupils so dilated that their irises appeared black. Malik did not understand why they were still under the control of the orb. He did understand that pondering the cause of the peasants' continued mind control would not save his life.

Malik's hand grasped the hilt of his dagger. He drew the knife in one swift motion and swept it around in a fluid arc that sliced through two men's ankle tendons. Blood stained the gravel path. The wounds weren't fatal but they were crippling and they bought Malik enough time to get to his feet. He slammed his elbow into the chest of one gardener and punched the last in the face with his knife-hilt. The whole fight was over as quickly as Malik could manage, but he realised even as the last man fell to the ground that he was too late. A small company of guards turned to watch as the last gardener fell to his knees. They shouted a warning. A cry answered from the walls of the kasbah, and Malik ran.

He reached the small tangle of servant housing just before the soldiers caught up with him. There were only four men, but they were all armed. Malik did not even consider fighting. As he reached the first building he gathered himself and leapt for the roof. He hit the wall with room to spare, grabbed the edge of the roof and hung there for a second before he hauled himself up.

The tribesmen had slowed as they reached the buildings; confident in their ability to corner Malik against the walls. His leap caught them completely by surprise. They stared at him as if he was a demon.

Malik grinned despite his dire situation. He wondered what they would think of Altaïr. The other Assassin's abilities bordered on the superhuman. Malik was merely very good.

_I did not expect them to be so surprised_, he thought. _But everyone in the Holy Land has heard of the Assassins, even if they have heard only lies and Templar trickery_. _Thery have never even heard of Assassins in Morocco._

He glanced around to check his bearings and headed for the fortress wall. Soldiers appeared on the flat rooftops of the kasbah towers. Malik did not pay them too much attention. Crossbows were expensive, and Marîd had taken the only one that Malik knew of within the castle walls.

He loped up a flight of low stairs to the next building and saw a clear path to the walls laid out in front of him. There were guards on the towers all around. A flood of servants poured out of the gateway to his right. The mind controlled peasants were slow and stupid but relentless in pursuit. Malik knew that he could not afford to linger.

He started to run. His mind flew faster than his feet as he mapped out a route. Most of the houses were on one level. The taller buildings were only a couple of storeys high. The run would have been easy in Acre or Jerusalem, but the sheer plainness of the kasbah buildings made the course slightly more challenging. There were no climbing plants, no balconies; not even any washing lines.

Malik jumped to the next building without breaking his stride. He moved swiftly and economically, without a single wasted movement. Within a few seconds he was half-way to the walls. The flat roofs of the houses were covered with a thin layer of mud over a straw and timber framework which gave slightly under Malik's footsteps. Their structure made for good terrain. Malik discovered that the rooftops were far more fragile than they looked only when his foot sank through a roof up to his knee. He stumbled and fell. The mud crumbled under his body weight and disintegrated in a cloud of dust. Malik reached out for a handhold. He did not find one. Instead he hit the floor hard and rolled to his feet in a haze of stalks and dirt. His legs felt leaden- not a good sign. He had found it impossible to keep up with his training during his weeks in the Templar stronghold. Now he was paying the price.

He coughed and looked around for an exit. There was a rickety door in the east wall. Light flickered between the battered planks as soldiers cast shadows on the other side of the door. Somebody shouted a command.

Malik braced himself for the assault. When the Templars broke down the door moments later he was waiting for them. The force of the soldiers' charge tilted the door inwards like a ramp. Malik used the peeling wood as a springboard. He pushed off with his hand and feet and leapt straight over the Templars' heads. A few of them reacted, but they were far too slow. Malik dodged around the few men who had wit enough to point their weapons in the right direction and vanished around the corner of the building.

He did not bother to look behind him. Instead he gritted his teeth and concentrated on reaching the fortress wall as quickly as possible.

As he ran the brainwashed Templar servants crashed into the tiny ghetto like a wave. The sound of their bare feet on the earth sounded like thunder. They spread out like a stain and pushed between every tiny building. Malik almost did not reach the wall in time. When he arrived at the wall's base he wedged his hand and feet in the tiny gaps and hauled himself up as quickly as he could climb. A few of the closest servants followed, but they plummeted to the ground before they had reached the height of the second storey buildings and after that no more tried to climb.

Malik reached the top of the wall in a few seconds. He vaulted over the narrow ramparts as a pair of Templar guards charged him from each end of the building. Praying he had the place that he had marked, he sprinted across the top of the wall in two long strides and flung himself from the battlements with his arms spread.

The sky spun past; first above him and then below him as his body flipped. Cool air bathed his face. He landed on his back in the cartful of hay he and Marîd had thoughtfully placed in the gardens the previous evening. The sky above his head was a pure and flawless blue. Straw tickled his face.

Somebody shouted from the ramparts, exhorting the brainwashed servants to greater efforts in the service of their dead lord. Malik fought his way from the hay and vaulted over the side of the cart. He plunged into the scanty cover of the kasbah's apple orchard and took a roundabout route to the nearest _qanat_. The well looked uninviting enough, but compared to death at the hands of a half-crazed mob it appeared positively welcoming.

Malik climbed down into the black throat of the _qanat._

He descended as quickly as he could but he had not even reached half way when he saw a face looking down over the parapet. Malik lowered his head hastily. He was almost certain that the Templars would not notice him in the dim light, but he was not about to take the risk.

"Bring a torch," somebody ordered.

Malik did not wait for the Templars to fetch a light. He climbed down as quickly as he could and fell the last ten feet into chest-high icy water. He ducked out of the circle of light at the base of the _qanat_ immediately and stepped into the southernmost of the two tunnels that led into the well. It was narrow enough that he could touch each side easily with his right hand, and low enough that he had to duck his head to enter. His fingers snagged on slimy algae as he traced the walls. A rock caught him on the forehead and he lifted his hand to touch the ceiling instead.

Malik headed into the darkness, moving as quickly as he could. He wished he could have brought a lamp, but he had no way to light it even if he had been able to hide one in the tunnels. The vertical shafts set into the _qanat_ ceiling cast a small amount of light, but it wasn't enough.

The weight of the water and his soaked robes made it hard for him to walk and he stumbled many times. Eventually he settled into a rhythm that was bearable if not at all comfortable. He counted each vertical well as it passed above his head and kept tally of the number in his mind. He heard no signs of pursuit.

After a while Malik stopped to rest. He ate an apple and a piece of flat bread that he had hidden in his robes and scooped up a handful of water from the stream. The tunnels were as black as pitch. He heard only the river's ceaseless ripple and the far-off drip of water. His feet ached from the cold at first but after a while they became numb and stopped hurting. The water level never dropped much below his waist.

The qanat was a long one. It stretched for a full _marhala_, twice as far as a man could walk in a day. Malik walked for mile after mile, shivering in the cold and counting each well. Nobody followed him. He did not question his good fortune.

Once even the dim light from the wells overhead faded, Malik pressed on underground. It was not the most uncomfortable night he had ever spent in his life, but it was close to it. The air temperature in the tunnels was no cooler than a spring day in Masyaf, but the water was icy. Malik tried pressing his back against one wall and his feet against the other whenever he rested. He found quickly that he could not hold the position comfortably for long and even when he did, his damp clothes made any kind of comfort impossible. Eventually he sighed, gave up and waited for the dawn.

The morning came slowly. Once the sunlight overhead was bright enough Malik increased his pace and headed for the last tunnel before the qanat exit. He knew that the aqueduct where Marîd waited was only a short journey from the tunnel mouth. He reached the well just before midday, drank as much water as he could comfortably manage and climbed up to the entrance of the narrow shaft. By then his hands were so cold he could hardly move them. Fortunately the climb did not require manual dexterity so much as brute strength. The well was narrow enough for Malik to climb easily by pressing his back against one wall and walking his feet up the other. Even so, it was a long climb. His clothes grew heavy and gritty with soil as he neared the top of the shaft. When he reached the surface he clambered out of the narrow cone that marked the top of the qanat and turned his face to the welcoming sun.

The salt flats glittered like diamonds in the bright sunlight. Once Malik had stopped shivering he wiped some of the mud from his robe, wrung out his sash and set off slowly across the plain. He saw no other people and heard only the cries of the hawks that circled slowly overhead. By mid-afternoon he caught sight of the aqueduct in the distance. It looped across the bone-white salt-plain like a great cream-coloured caterpillar.

Malik smiled.

The attack came out of nowhere. Malik saw nothing; heard nothing. It felt as if he was slapped to the desert floor by an invisible hand. The blow was strong enough to knock the breath from his body. He sprawled helplessly upon his back in the dust. When he tried to rise he found that he couldn't move a muscle.

A few moments later a cool shadow fell over him. The shadow was followed by a face.

"I thought I'd find you here," Al-Ghurab said, quite cheerfully. "How fortunate."

Malik managed to shift his gaze a few inches before the force that held him frozen prevented him from moving any further. The Templar seemed to be alone, but Malik heard the sound of stamping horses and low conversation over to his left. His prone position prevented him from lifting his head to mark the location of the other Templar soldiers but he knew that they were there.

He saw sunlight glint from metal and looked up.

Al-Ghurab held the Apple of Eden cupped in his right hand. The touch of the orb on his bare skin did not seem to disturb him.

Malik felt a cold trickle of sweat snake down his spine.

_If al-Ghurab has the orb_, he thought, _then Marid is surely dead. I have failed. May Allah defend Masyaf._

The Templar cocked his head like his raven namesake and held out his hand. "Give me the Piece of Eden," he ordered. "You have no other choice."

Surprise loosened Malik's tongue. "But you have-" He nearly bit his lip as realisation dawned. Al-Ghurab had one artefact already, yet he was still searching for the Master's Eden fragment. He hadn't recovered the orb Marîd had stolen.

_There must be two of them_, he thought.

Al-Ghurab looked as puzzled as Malik for a moment before he broke into a grin. "You didn't know?" he asked. "Of course! How could you?" He held up the golden globe in his right hand so that it caught the light. The brazen glare nearly blinded Malik. He tried vainly to bring his good hand up to cover his eyes.

"You made a mistake, Assassin," Al-Ghurab gloated. "I still own one Apple, after all." He knelt down beside Malik. "Soon I will own two. That was a clever trick you played. One you may have cause to regret."

"My only regret," Malik snarled. "is that I failed."

Al-Ghurab ignored him. He rifled through Malik's damp and filthy robes with distaste. He found nothing. When a second search failed to reveal the Eden fragment he stood up, brows creased in a frown, and kicked Malik hard in the ribs. "Where is it?"

Malik did not bother to hide his smile."It's not here."

Al-Ghurab kicked him again, hard enough to force what little breath Malik had regained from his body. He waited for the next blow, the one that could kill him, but none came. "Where did you hide it?" the Templar demanded. He paused. "Of course. I wonder where your apprentice is? Could it be that he has the Eden fragment?" A smile spread slowly across his face.

"He was nothing," Malik said. "I killed him." He hoped that Marîd had had the sense to run away. The ruined aqueduct was invisible from his prone position on the ground.

"Really?" Al-Ghurab said. "I doubt it. We have found no body and we have searched everywhere I can think of. And I know this place better than any foreigner. No." He shook his head. "Make no mistake, we will find him. And when we find him, we shall kill him. Until we do, I'll take each wasted day out of your hide." He shook his head. "Such as it is. Your kin must be quite desperate to send a crippled man to steal a Piece of Eden."

Malik weighed his options. There were few available. He decided the most sensible decision he could make was to keep al-Ghurab talking. "Why not?" he gasped. "I stole one once before."

"I find that hard to believe," al-Ghurab said.

"Come closer," Malik snarled, "and I'll show you the speed of my blade."

"You are hardly in a position to make threats, Assassin," Al-Ghurab's voice was gently mocking.

"And you are hardly going to be able to kill me from there." Malik pointed out. A fast death would surely be easier than whatever fate the Templar planned for him. He should have known that the Templars loved to gloat. If their positions had been reversed, al-Ghurab would have found himself with a dagger in his eye as quickly as Malik had time to draw his blade.

"I'm not going to kill you." Al-Ghurab spun the Apple in his fingers. "Not yet, anyway. In a way you did me a favour. Allow me to show my gratitude." He kicked Malik again. "Al-Walid was far too soft. He placed far too much trust in these baubles. I will hunt down your novice without magic to assist me, and I'll hang your body on the walls of my fortress as an example to the others."

Malik spat a Syrian curse. "You can't kill a creed," he said. "There will always be those who oppose you."

"Maybe." Al-Ghurab said. "But not, I think, you." He looked over his shoulder and opened his mouth to call the guards.

Malik waited for his fate. He heard the twang of a crossbow quarrel releasing and he braced himself for the impact without thinking about where the bolt had come from.

Al-Ghurab's eyes widened. His fingers slackened and the Apple fell from his hand. It rolled across the desert floor to Malik's side and bumped him gently in the ribs. The Templar clutched at the crossbow bolt that protruded from his chest. He opened his mouth but no sound came out. A trickle of blood slid from the corner of his lips as he sagged to his knees.

The compulsion that held immobile Malik vanished. Moving as quickly as his chilled and cramping limbs would allow, he snatched al Ghurab's dagger from his sash and buried it up to the hilt in the Templar's chest.

"Peace be upon you," he told the dying man as he grovelled in the dust.

Al-Ghurab gurgled. "God only knows," he said with a gurgle.

Malik rested his hand on his knees and bent down. "What does your God know?" he asked.

"God knows...who is wrong...and who has sinned." Al-Ghurab spat. "Soon...a calamity will occur to those who have condemned us to death."

He said nothing more before he died.

Malik wondered what the Templar had meant as he closed his sightless eyes. He decided that he did not wish to know. He took a deep breath, fighting the pain in his ribs where al-Ghurab had kicked him, and looked around. The Templar soldiers stood on the dunes a short distance away. They made no move towards him. Their faces were creased in confusion. "Marîd?" Malik called.

The boy stood up from the creosote bush where he had been hiding and came to greet Malik. The crossbow Malik had given him hung from the bandolier over his chest. "Safety and peace," he said, and smiled.

Malik swatted his ear. "I told you to wait," he said.

Marîd gave an unrepentant grin. "If I had waited, you would have been dead," he said as Malik scooped the second Eden fragment up using the sleeve of his robe as padding. "Besides, I did just as you told me."

Malik raised his eyebrows. "Really? How so?"

"You told me to use a crossbow if I fought against the Templars," the boy said. He spat on the corpse of the dead man. "What do we do now? What about the Templars' plans? What about the siege?"

"It won't happen," Malik felt a great weight lifting from his shoulders even as the words left his lips. "Masyaf is safe-for now."

"That what do we do?" Marîd looked at Malik as if he held the answers to all the questions in the world. "What do we do now?"

"Now?" said Malik. He smiled. "Now, we go home."

_To be continued..._


	11. Epilogue

An Assembly of Bones

An Assassin's Creed fan fiction by xahra99

_Epilogue._

_Masyaf, 1194._

They reached Masyaf in the spring of the following year, landing at Saint Symeon, the great seaport of Antioch. Malik stole a donkey from a village just outside the port and they travelled up the Orontes valley as fast as they could manage. There was still snow on the ground when they reached the castle. Masyaf's great stone walls looked more forbidding than ever against the grey sky, but to Malik they were more welcome than the gardens of Paradise.

The weather had put the Assassin gate guard in a foul mood. Malik could tell even before they reached the man that he was not pleased to see them. He stood with his arms folded beside a brazier and watched them toil up the pass without saying a word.

"What's your business?" he asked when they reached him.

"My business?" Malik tried to push past, but the _fidai _blocked his passage with one arm. "My business is here. I am an Assassin."

"You have no hidden blade," the guard pointed out.

"I have no arm either. Must I scale the ramparts just to prove my point?" Malik looked up at the walls in irritation and belatedly realised that they were both still standing and unmarked. "You've had no Templar siege?"

The guard looked at Malik like he was mad. "No."

Malik sighed. "My name is Malik al-Sayf," he said.

"Al-Sayf died three years ago in Jerusalem," the _fidai_ told him. He smiled slightly, as if he had caught Malik out in a lie.

Malik rolled his eyes. "I sent a message from Antioch," he said.

The _fidai_ looked unimpressed. "Must have missed it."

"Fetch your superior," Malik said. "I will wait."

The _fidai_ reluctantly beckoned a small boy from his game of jacks. "Tell the _rafiq_ there is someone at the gate," he told the child. The boy nodded and went flying up the road towards the castle. Marîd eyed the discarded game pieces with interest as the gate guard said "You can wait outside the walls."

Malik slid down with his back against the wall and blew on his hand. He glanced up at the sky, which threatened snow. Marîd sat down beside him. The donkey sidled up to the gate and began to nibble on some grass with an expression nearly as sour as the _fidai's._

After a while Marîd got up and headed through the gate to the boy's abandoned game. As he passed the gate the _fidai_ reached down and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. "I tpld yu to stay outside the walls!" he snapped.

"We've travelled far," Malik said without moving from his huddled position.

"Then you'll just have to wait a bit longer," the Assassin guard said. He pushed Marîd backwards and the boy fell sprawling on frost-rimed grass on the other side of the gate. The donkey wandered towards the gate and the _fidai _shoved it back as well. "Nobody enters or leaves without permission. It's the Master's orders."

Malik cursed Altaïr's sudden interest in security. "Don't be a fool," he said. He reached for the donkey's lead rope. "Come here, Altaïr."

The _fidai's_ eyes narrowed. "Is this some sort of joke?" he said.

"We named the donkey Altaïr," Malik said absently.

"You insult the Order!" snapped the _fidai_.

"Not the Order," Malik said.

"You know nothing of our Master Altaïr!"

"On the contrary," Malik said. "I knew him when we were both novices." He looked up at the _fidai_. "In fact, you remind me of Altaïr at that time. He was an idiot."

The _fidai _stepped out of the gateway and advanced on Malik, scowling. "Don't insult me."

"When I see something that needs doing," Malik said, "I do it."

The fidai snarled. Marîd saw his chance and darted towards the discarded jacks. The _fidai _swung around to grab the boy. There was a hiss as his hidden blade unsheathed.

Malik lunged forwards. There was a brief scuffle. The fight ended with Malik gripping the _fidai'_s left hand. "Do yourself a favour," he said as he jammed the curled fingers of the _fidai'_s fist up against the man's own throat. "Don't move."

"It seems that travel has not improved your temper." Abbas said from behind him.

Malik relaxed. "Abbas?" he said. "It's an honour."

Abbas grinned. "Good to see you, Al-Sayf," he said, managing to sound as if Malik had just gone out for the day rather than vanishing for three years.

"You're a _dai_ now?" Malik asked. He released the _fidai, _whoglanced from Malik to Abbas and wisely shrank back against the wall.

Abbas nodded.

"It seems that standards have slipped since my time," said Malik

"They had slipped long before," replied Abbas.

Malik snorted. He gestured to Marîd, who was already warming his hands at the guard's brazier. "This is Marîd. He begins to be one of us. Look after him for me. Take him to the kitchen. I need to speak to Altair."

Abbas frowned. "Yes. But look, Malik, there's somebody else you need to see."

"Whoever it is, it can wait," Malik said firmly. "Marîd, go with Abbas. Stable the donkey. I will find you later."

"But-" Abbas said.

"I'll be back soon," Malik said. He nodded at Marîd and started up the path towards the fortress. Abbas watched him go. Once Malik had disappeared around the corner he shook his head. "He should have waited," he said. "This is going to be fun."

"Why?" Marîd asked curiously.

"Never mind," Abbas said.

Malik trudged up the muddy road to Masyaf keep. The wind was keener here, and cold enough to freeze his breath. He pulled his robe around his throat with his hand and shivered.

As he walked he passed a few more _fidai'in. _The novices looked curiously at Malik's tattered clothes but did not stop him. Malik thought he caught a glimpse of long hair on one of them. _A girl_? he thought, and then dismissed the idea immediately.

The guards to the Master's study-Altaïr's study, now-had obviously heard the news of Malik's arrival. They bowed. "It is an honour," one said. "The Master waits within."

Malik matched their bow. "Safety and peace," he said.

He walked up the stairs to Altaïr's desk and bowed deeply. "Master," he said.

Altaïr raised an eyebrow. "Do not mock me," he said.

"I would not dare." Malik withdrew a pouch from his belt. He lifted out the two Eden fragments and placed them on the desk in front of Altaïr. "I have the orb," he said.

Altaïr studied the two Eden fragments. "That is one more than I expected," he said.

"There is a story behind that," Malik said. "But that, I think, is a tale for another time."

"So the artefacts are safe." Altaïr reached out and touched the nearest orb.

Malik nodded. "And the Templars are dead." He frowned. "Although-well, it is probably nothing-"

"What?"

"One of the Templars spoke of great calamity to come before he died," Malik said. He had seen enough of the Eden fragment's visions to take them very seriously.

"Interesting," Altaïr said. "Did he mention what?"

Malik shrugged. "He did not have time. He died shortly after."

"Do you think it was a true vision of the orb?"

Malik shrugged. "In truth, I do not know."

"Then we will deal with it like everything else, in turn," Altaïr said seriously. The solemn effect was somewhat ruined by the sound of approaching feet as Nusaybah hurried into the room. She looked from one Assassin to the other and then swayed over to Malik.

"Malik al-Sayf," she said throatily. "You have kept me waiting long enough."

Malik for once, could think of absolutely nothing to say. "I-"

Nusaybah slapped him. It was a much more accurate blow than Malik expected. "That's for leaving," she said, then smiled. "But I am glad that you are back."

"I tried to stop her," Abbas called from the hallway. "But not too hard."

Nusaybah looked at Malik critically. "You're thinner," she said as if he was a horse she was thinking of buying.

"You're here," Malik said stupidly.

She smiled sweetly. "Abbas has been teaching me to kill."

"Though I gather that'll be your job from now on, al-Sayf." Abbas slapped Malik on the back. Malik's head spun from more than just the blow.

"I thought you were in Jerusalem," he said to Nusaybah.

"I was in Jerusalem," Nusaybah corrected. "Until the Templars found me. I've been here ever since."

"What are you doing?"

"I'm training the girls," she said, as nonchalantly as if she was not ignoring years of Assassin tradition. "They have a lot to learn."

Malik turned to Altaïr. "Women in the order?"

Altaïr shrugged. "The times are changing. We must change with them."

"That's certainly true," Malik admitted.

"Everything is permitted," said Altaïr.

"Even teaching women to fight," Abbas said.

"We must move in ways the Templars do not expect," Altaïr said.

Malik wisely said nothing. "What now?" he asked.

"The Templars spoke of an archive of Eden Pieces in Cyprus," Altaïr said. "It seems like a good place to begin. I'll travel there, and-"

"But you are the Master!" Malik said.

"That does not mean that I must shut myself up with my books like Al Mualim. And you have done enough."

Malik shook his head. "Then surely you can send somebody else. You do not have to go-"

"Why not?" Altaïr said. "After all, now I have somebody I trust to care for Masyaf for me," He looked at Malik.

"You are honoured," said Abbas.

"If the honour is that great, I'll pass it onto you," Malik snapped.

"Not on my life," Abbas said cheerfully.

Malik nodded. He would deal with that problem when and if it came. "And the Eden fragments?"

"They'll stay safe here.," said Altaïr. "I shall lock them away. They've played their part for now. I think the world needs to do without them for a while. I must think on what I've learned. Don't worry. I won't leave this year."

"And until then?"

"Rest," Altaïr said. "You have earned it."

Nusaybah cleared her throat delicately. "If I may? Have you finished?"

Altaïr nodded. Abbas tactfully refused to comment.

"Come," she said, and took Malik's hand.

He expected her to take him outside but instead she led him across the courtyard, past the practising novices and up onto the roof of the keep's tallest tower. Once they reached the flat roof she walked over to the battlement and leaned her arms on the parapet. "It's beautiful," she said.

Malik followed her gaze. A hawk wheeled high above the snow-capped mountains. Its pinions brushed the sky like outstretched hands. "Yes," he said, and caught sight of the side of her face as a gust of wind whipped at her hair. A delicate scar curved along her cheekbone. The wound was fresh; the puckered skin raised and pink. He reached out a hand and traced the mark across her cheek and up into her hair. "What happened?"

Nusaybah closed her eyes and leaned into his touch."Templars," she said briefly. She said no more. They stood side by side, looking out over the mountains.

"You're staying?" Malik said after a while.

Nusaybah gave him a small, private smile. "I may consider it," she said.

"Do," he said. "At least for a while."

"Why not? These are peaceful times."

Malik frowned. "Perhaps. But not for long. I don't know what the future holds for any of us, but of that I am certain. There will always be war."

We'll see what the future holds," she said. Her smile widened. "It will be here soon, after all."

"And the Assassins," Malik said, "will be ready."

_Finis._

_Author's Note_:

So this is likely to be the last AC fic I write for a while, as I'm trying to focus more on original stuff. But I've said that before, so who knows? Anyway, sources that I blatantly ripped off-er, influenced me-are as follows.

The unrest described in the Holy Land after Saladin's death was very real. Saladin's brother Sayf al-din, better known as Al-Adil, who features in my previous fic Both Worlds as Our Companion, defeated Saladin's sons to control the dynasty, which only ended years after his death when the Mongols invaded Aleppo in 1260.

Marie Brennan's posts on writing fight scenes under the livejournal account swan_tower were incredibly helpful with the knife-fights. I'd recommend her livejournal and stories to anyone.

The kasbah I described in the fic is based on a number of real Moroccan buildings that are mostly much younger in period, including Ait Benhaddou and Kasbah El Glaoui in Telouet, as I found it much more difficult than I expected to research Moroccan medieval history. Most of the kasbahs are open to the public so you can go and have a look around them if you happen to be in Morocco.

The free running sequence at the end, including Malik's trick with the door, is heavily influenced by the parkour scenes in Luc Besson's film District 13 (_Banlieu 13_). I do confess wondering at times why they didn't just shoot David Belle. Medieval parkour thankfully does not have that problem.

And last but not least, al-Ghurab's last words are remarkably similar to those of the Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay right before they burned him at the stake. There is a calamity coming, of course-the rise of the Mongols is not far away-but for now our heroes can relax, and listen to the wind blowing gently down the valley.

So I hope you have enjoyed this fic and indeed the whole Crusades series. If you have, tell me something you liked about it and something you didn't. I'll try to improve with your help. And always remember-nothing is true, and everything is permitted.


End file.
